Life As A House
by kezztip
Summary: A Crossover with the movie - Jackie's Uncle George invites her to spend the summer with him to help with a 'special project'. She agees but she will get more than she bargained for when she finds out the real reason behind her Uncle's invitation.
1. Numb

****

Disclaimer: Don't own and am not profiting from either That '70s Show or the brilliant movie, Life As a House. This is not plagiarism, it is a homage.

Pairing: J/H

Life As a House

**I just re-watched Life As a House last week and while I was watching this story was building in my head. So this is my crossover, and I think it will be more angsty than any of my other stories. If you know this wonderful movie, I am giving Jackie the role of George's son, Sam.**

Chapter 1

The pills were yellow, this time.

Jackie couldn't remember what the official name was supposed to be. Began with Dip or Dich or something like that. All she needed to know was how they would make her feel. Not up. Not down.

Numb.

Numb was the best she could hope to feel. Because it meant the opposite of feeling. Numbness was a blessed defence against boyfriends who tossed away as worthless two and a half years of the most honest love you had ever dug inside yourself to offer. It deadened the betrayal of your best friends who ditched you in order to befriend the woman that boyfriend walked away with. It arrested that feeling of panic that rose in your chest when you dared to look out over a future which had no prospect of love, friendship or even an engaging career to hope for.

With a swallow of water to chase the little yellow pill down her throat, Jackie lay back on her pillow and let the nothingness wash over her.

This was her life now.

………………………………………

George Burkhart lay back on his bed, staring into the darkness. His mind felt as scattered as a kaleidoscope that had been shaken up. He knew he would never be able to put it back into the pattern that it had held for the last 42 years of his life, a pattern never broken until this morning.

This morning.

His day had begun the same tired way it always did. Waking up in the broken down wooden shack his father had jerry-built while his brother, Jack, had been a toddler, and before George was born or thought of. A house he hated as much as he did the man who built it, yet with a view that broke your heart with its beauty. Amazing how it never lost its magic, that sweeping vista of Malibu cliff and Pacific ocean that was his lifelong companion. He knew his neighbours with their modern 10 bedroom mansions never failed to give his grey little house looks of disgust that such an ugly structure dared to spoil their perfect looking cul-de-sac. It didn't matter that it was the first house that had been built on this ocean-front property. It only mattered that it was old and ugly and out of place on their perfect-looking street.

After his golden retriever, Guster, had licked him awake, he had fought the aching lethargy in his body and dragged himself into work. He worked at the offices of Benson, Kiddler, Feinsilber and Associates, a firm which had added some of the most imposing buildings to the Los Angeles skyscape over the last 35 years. George remembered when he first began with them as an intern 20 years ago. He was determined to work his way up to be one of their top architects; he would build skyscrapers, mansions, hospitals, buildings that would astound his father who had never thought he would amount to anything, buildings that would have made his mother proud if she had still been alive to see them. He never thought that first day when they set him down at a desk and started him building models of other people's dreams, that 20 years later he would be doing the same boring, meticulous, migraine-making work; a little glue here, tweezer in the tiny roof tiles there, dabble minute patches of artificial grass there. Perhaps it was his hopeless existence that had him feeling this exhausted lately. Perhaps a lifetime of building other men's dreams had sapped the strength from his bones, caused him to lose 30 pounds these last few months, explained these strange vomiting fits that came more frequently.

When his boss, Bryan Burke, had called him into his office, he never saw it coming. After all, he had been with the firm for 20 years, rarely missed a day of work, worked overtime to get his projects in on time. But apparently it wasn't good enough. He was still not as fast as the new junior members of his department, fresh from college, who would give George the same looks as his neighbours gave his house; _what is that old dinosaur still doing here?_

Bryan had tried to lead into it with the usual gambits that oil the clumsy machinery of social engagement.

"So, how's the wife?"

George stared at him blankly for half a minute. They had only worked together for 12 years.

"When we divorced a decade ago, she was very, very angry," he said. "Now she's just hostile."

Bryan laughed uncomfortably, tried a few more such opening lines, and then finally went to the heart of the matter.

"It's not me," he disclaimed, holding up hands as clean at Pilate's. "You know how the Board is – it's all about profits and efficiency ratings."

"I've been here twenty years," George said, shock heavy in his voice.

"Maybe that's too long."

"Maybe...?" With a hint of hope.

"That's too long."

George absorbed the fact that he was actually losing his job. Sizing up how he felt about the fact. "I hate this job."

"What are you talking about?" Bryan said. "You love your job."

"From the day I started...to today. Can't stand it."

"Then it sounds like I'm doing you a favor." Bryan said with a smile, relieved to find a way out that wouldn't make him the bad guy.

"It may sound that way, but I react out of fear. My life has nothing to do with what I like or don't like."

Bryan didn't know how to take this. He had never really understood this quiet man who never chatted over the water cooler about the football game he had seen or the cocktail waitress he had screwed. So he did what he always did; concentrated on how the end of George's career affected him. "Well, I feel better about this now."

"Good. I was hoping for that."

The irony had gone over Bryan's head, as he knew it would. Still, he felt 20 years of loyal service deserved some reward, above the year's severance pay Bryan was 'so generously' bestowing. He asked if he could take a three or four of the hundreds of models he had built over his career. It was a small enough request, unassuming even, but Bryan had been taken aback by it. He explained, regretfully of course, that the models were company property and he really couldn't… but hey, if George wanted to pick out one, then to hell with the Board, so long as he cleared it with Bryan first, then of course…

Perhaps George had overreacted. Bryan certainly seemed to feel that going out to his workspace, removing an architectural plan from its wooden spool and then using that spool to systematically smash almost all the building models he had painstakingly created over the last two decades, was an overreaction. Secretaries screamed, smooth cheeked interns ran for cover and senior associates ducked for safety into their offices as George swept through the office with his wooden spool of destruction until the offices of Benson, Kiddler, Feinsilber and Associates looked like a miniature Manhattan after Godzilla had paid a social call.

"I'll take this one," George said to a cowering Bryan, as he cradled the one model that had escaped his wrath. A model of a late-fifties style bungalow that was the first model George had ever made. Terrified, Bryan could only nod in agreement as George turned and walked away. Then he stopped, and turned around. There was something he had always wanted to say.

"You know, you're a great architect and a miserable human being," George said dispassionately. Bryan blinked, astonished this lowly model-builder would ever say such a thing to him.

"You're not even an architect and you're a miserable human being," he spat in reply.

George turned around only long enough to answer. "You're right… you win."

George only made it 5 feet outside when he collapsed onto the pavement, his first and last model a broken pillow for his unconscious head.

………………………………………

And now here he was, lying on a hospital bed, coming to terms with what the doctor had just told him. It was a hell of a thing to find out this was the first day of the end of your life.

The sensation that filled him most was the injustice of it all. He had always counted on time. One day he would fix all the things that had gone wrong with his life. With his ex-wife. With his house. With Jackie.

Jackie.

It had been so long since he had seen her. She had been such a beautiful little girl, so full of life and overflowing with love. Her laughter bubbled from her tiny pink lips so easily. He wondered if it still did. He hoped Pam had become a better mother than the last time he had witnessed her parenting, ten years ago. He hoped his brother, Jack, had learned to appreciate the beautiful gift God had blessed him with in his daughter. He hoped life had turned out better for Jackie than it had for him.

Suddenly hoping and wondering wasn't enough. He had to know. Before he left this world, he had to know who Jackie was, know that she would be alright. He had to warn her about how capricious life could be, how important it was to hold onto the people you loved with all your strength and not let them get swept away in the daily tide of surviving that eroded the best of intentions.

He had to tell her the truth.

George picked up the phone and placed a call to Point Place, Wisconsin.

………………………………………

It was the memory of the ocean that made Jackie agree.

The memory that stood out from her eighth summer more than any was how intensely blue the ocean had looked from her Uncle George's house. Perhaps that was why she had loved Steven's eyes so much; they reminded her of that magical ocean, that magical summer, when every morning she would wake up on Uncle George's funny old couch, creep out barefoot on the uneven wooden floors to the balcony and gaze out in awe over that incredible expanse of blueness. She would stare at it for the hour before Uncle George awoke, joined her on the balcony and picked her up in his arms. Then he would sit down in the deck chair, settle her onto his lap and tell her wonderful stories. Stories of pirates and fair maidens, legends of shipwrecks and rescues, exciting histories of the people who had built and made this stretch of California what it was.

She had not recognised her Uncle's voice when he called. It sounded thinner than she remembered. He had invited her to stay with him at his house that still perched on its cliff in one of Malibu's outer suburbs, saying he had a special project he wanted her help with. She had not known what to say at first, the very thought of the effort it would take to pack, make travel arrangements, hand in her notice at the salon just seemed beyond her. Like the rudder on her boat was too stiff to pull it into a new direction. She had confessed she didn't have enough money to buy a ticket to LA – that much was the truth, at least. Sweeping hair for a living was not as glamorous or well paid as one might think. George cut through her objections, saying he would book and pay for her ticket.

"Jackie, I really need to see you," he said. There was a thread of intensity and need in his voice that cut through her numbness to awaken the eight year old girl who had once loved this man so deeply. At the back of her eyes she saw that blue ocean, and almost involuntarily she said the word that would change her life.

"Yes."

………………………………………

It had been three weeks since Jackie had stepped foot in the basement. At first, after Sam's disastrous arrival, she had tried to carry on with her life, fighting against the fact that everything had changed and all her friendships and relationships with the people she met in this house were irrevocably altered, like a bone that had been fractured and not properly set. As though if she just waltzed in every day, prattling about how stunning her hair looked today and how ugly Donna's shirt was, it would put everything back the way it used to be when tacky strippers did not French kiss her boyfriend in front of her, when the unambitious blonde who fawned over her latest boyfriend (who was a transparent substitute for her former boyfriend) used to be a fiery redhead who would have chased a stripper out of her territory with blazing feminist rhetoric.

Her hand on the door, she heard Donna's voice.

"Hey, Fez, I've been meaning to ask, what is Jackie up to? I haven't seen her around here lately." She spoke as though Jackie's absence had just occurred to her.

"Oh, not much," Fez said, his eyes fixated on the generous length of Sam's legs displayed by her tiny shorts. "She mainly stays in her room at the apartment and doesn't have much to say when we work together. She is no fun anymore."

"When was she ever fun?" Sam said with a biting laugh. "From what Hyde tells me, I don't know how you guys put up with her as long as you did."

There was a time when these words would have had Jackie turning away in a tearstorm, too hurt and ashamed to let her former friends know she had overheard. Now her armour of numbness protected her from the worst of the hurt. She turned the knob and stepped through.

"Thank you for talking about me behind my back," she said as their heads swivelled towards her. "That'll be useful in court."

"Jackie," Fez said nervously. "We were just lamenting your absence."

"Speak for yourself," Hyde said gruffly, his eyes hidden behind his glasses. He reflexively pulled Sam closer against his body, tightening his hand on her thigh and watching Jackie for her reaction. But there was none. Her eyes were as empty as they had been since shortly after Sam had barged her way into this house.

"What's with the suitcase," Donna asked, noticing the carry-all slung over Jackie's shoulder.

"I'm going out of town for the summer," Jackie explained with little emotion. "Visiting a relative."

"And you thought this would interest anyone here – how?" Sam asked snidely.

"No, I didn't really think any of you would be interested," Jackie said, her face giving nothing away. "I just thought I'd let Mr and Mrs Foreman know so they wouldn't worry about what happened to me."

"Well, I am very interested," Fez cried. Jackie's eyes flickered with something until Fez finished his sentence. "Who is going to pay your half of the rent until you return?"

Jackie sighed. She should have known Fez's first concern would be his self-interest. "Mandy at the salon has been looking to move out of her parents' house. If you ask her and try to tone down the creepiness I'm sure she will be happy to take my place."

"Ooh, I like Mandy," Fez said gleefully. "She is quite the slut!"

For a moment Hyde and Jackie locked eyes, the words "It's not the first time I've been replaced by a slut" were so obvious they didn't need to be said. But Jackie just could not find the energy to make the burn; it didn't matter anymore.

"So… I guess I'll see you guys again someday," Jackie said in the same wooden voice. The uncertainty in her words sent a frisson of fear down Hyde's spine. The way she looked over the basement, as though imprinting it on her memory, it all seemed so… final.

Donna must have sensed something like that as well. She stood up and went towards Jackie, her arms open to hug her best friend goodbye. Jackie stared at Donna blankly, as though she didn't know what to do with this gesture, until the blonde dropped her arms to her sides in the awkward pause. There was something in Jackie's eyes that made her feel suddenly very ashamed of herself.

Hyde sat motionless while every muscle in his body was screaming to jump up, to dump the carbon-copy male fantasy whose weight was cramping his thighs to the floor and grab Jackie. Then he would shake her until the lifeless robot that stood there was gone, until she was yelling at him and crying and beating her fists against his chest for all he had done, until he was kissing her sweet face and promising to never leave her again.

But that wasn't Hyde. And Sam could not be so easily discarded. And Jackie would never forgive him, not again. This wasn't a romance novel.

This was goodbye.

And then she was gone.

**A.N. Wow, that chapter just poured out of me. I love it when that happens. Please let me know what you think – reviews inspire me to keep writing.**


	2. Surprise

**A.N. My thanks as always to all who reviewed. There were a few people who said they were going to go out and rent the movie after reading my chapter – if you did that, please let me know what you thought of it.**

When Jackie walked into the arrival lounge of Burbank Airport, she looked around eagerly for the man who was to meet her. She scanned the surrounding people, searching for a powerful giant of a man with coal black hair and a loud laugh. That was how she remembered her uncle. Of course, everybody looks like a giant to an eight year old, but still she was expecting that same sense of security she had found that long ago night when her uncle had marched into a lonely hotel room and taken a small frightened child away from the nightmare her mother had abandoned her to. Perhaps that magic would work again 10 years later.

This was why she felt unaccountably cheated when George stepped hesitantly towards her. This thin, stooping man with the unshaven chin and greying hair was not the knight in shining armour she was expecting. From the disbelieving way he said "Jackie?" it was obvious he was having the same recognition crisis, although there was more excuse for George considering the drastic changes of puberty. Still, Jackie could not help but feel some implied criticism towards her for daring to grow up.

"Uncle George," she acknowledged, a smile on her face but her voice flat. His welcoming hug took her by surprise and she remained stiff in his arms, the barrier of her suitcase banging against his kneecaps.

"Call me George," her uncle said. "It's – I can't tell you how good it is to have you here, Jackie."

"Thanks – I guess," Jackie returned. "I can't believe I'm here. When I was little I – I used to wish you would invite me to stay with you again." A memory of pain struck her. After that one shared summer, she had never heard from George again.

George's eyes saddened at the reproach. He looked as though he wanted to say something, then shook his head. "Let me help you with your bags."

Outside in the passenger pick-up car bay, a sleekly silver Beamer was waiting for them, with an equally sleek middle-aged blonde behind the steering wheel. "Aunt Robin?" Jackie cried, recognising George's ex-wife. She remembered her aunt as the beautiful lady who would visit her Uncle George every day and bring a basket of delicious gourmet food, because 'heaven knows she wasn't going to let him starve the poor child with his nonexistent cooking skills'. Even though they had been newly divorced at the time, Jackie had sensed more warmth between the separated spouses than there was between her officially married parents. Robin was still an extremely attractive woman, but her beauty had more of a hard edge to it now. Her smile was as polished as her manicure as she greeted her niece.

"So, are you two…?" Jackie asked, looking significantly towards George.

"God, no," Robin replied vehemently. "I'm married now."

"Don't be fooled," George loudly whispered to Jackie. "That's just her way of playing hard to get."

"By staying married to Peter for ten years and having two kids?"

"Well, I think the two boys were kind of an overkill."

Robin rolled her eyes as she put the car in gear. "George is on pain medication for his back. It was either I drive him or have him endanger innocent lives on the road." She eyed her ex moodily. "Of course, if it was just _his _neck he was risking I would have gladly handed him the keys."

George turned his head on the passenger headrest and regarded Robin with a gentle smile.

"You're the most beautiful woman I have ever known in my life."

"What?" Robin was thrown, confused if she had heard him right.

"I'm not talking just physically. Even your anger is perfect."

Suspecting a joke at her expense, Robin shot him a seething look and then proceeded to ignore her former husband, turning her attention to Jackie. She politely asked after her flight and how things were back in Wisconsin. Jackie returned with polite (and thereby false) answers; the flight was fine, everything back home is great, she was looking forward to a nice holiday. Politeness was such a no-brainer. Maybe life would go easier if she just trotted out the polite responses to every situation. Yes, Eric, that sweater vest really suits you. Yes, Mrs Foreman, I'm sure 10 in the morning is a perfectly suitable time for the first glass of wine. Yes, Donna, we should include Sam in all our special girlfriend time and make her feel like part of the group.

Come to think of it, politeness sucked.

"I wouldn't call George's house my idea of a holiday resort," Robin said, pulling Jackie back to the present. "I hope you've cleared away all those spare beams and lumber, George. I don't want Jackie tripping over one of your 'demolition finds' and tumbling off the cliff."

Jackie looked a little alarmed at this scenario. George glanced into the backseat and gave her a reassuring smile. "Don't worry, Jackie. There's no way that can happen."

"So you have fixed the place up since I last saw it?" Robin asked.

"Better," George replied. "I'm going to tear down the shack and build my house."

"I'm sorry – what?" Jackie said.

"Don't pay any attention to him, Jackie," her aunt instructed. "He's been saying that for twenty years. While we were dating, he was saying it.

"There's nothing anymore to stop me."

Robin decided to play along. "Money?"

"Severance pay. And I'm going to cash in my life insurance policy."

"Where will you live?"

"The garage."

"The garage?" Jackie squeaked. "You never mentioned anything about living in a garage."

"Don't worry, Jackie. George is all talk. He's not going to actually do anything. Are you, George? George?"

"Tomorrow Jackie and I are going to get started on the demolition," was George's answer. "I think we'll start with the roof. You can get a spectacular view of the ocean while tearing off old roof tiles."

"Oh my God," Jackie moaned as Robin's car pulled up in front of her Uncle George's house. This was not the house she remembered. Ten years ago the weathered boards had looked charmingly natural against the trees and ocean. Now the little house was dwarfed by crisply clean McMansions, showing up its shabbiness. And much like its owner, George's house had seen better days. Jackie had not thought much of what she would do with her time in California beyond a vague notion of escaping her old life and getting a good tan. Now it would appear she had jumped out of the frying pan into – well, a tumble-down shortly-to-be-condemned hellhole.

"Don't worry, Jackie," George said reassuringly, "I had the plumber out this morning to hook up a toilet in the garage. And we'll have to see what we can do about rigging some sort of shower."

"Uh huh," Jackie said weakly. "Well, that puts my mind at rest."

"Don't worry, sweetheart," Robin said, giving Jackie a goodbye hug. "If it gets too primitive around here you can come and stay with me."

Jackie wondered if it was too soon to jump at her aunt's offer. She should probably give it a couple of days first, so as not to look like too much of an ingrate. She noticed Robin staring into her eyes intently, a slight frown crinkling her smooth forehead.

"Your eyes," Robin said in a strange voice. "I never noticed before – how they are different colours."

Jackie dropped her gaze self-consciously; being colour-co-ordinated to the point of obsession, she found it unjust of nature to saddle her with eyes that would forever clash.

But if she had watched her aunt she would have seen the way her searching gaze turned to George, to change to a look of accusation. George looked back steadily.

"Thanks for the lift, Robin," he said as he took her lightly by the elbow. "Feel free to drop by any time. You can bring Ryan and Adam with you, if you like. I'd bet they'd get a big kick out of swinging a hammer through these old walls."

"If I come, it will only be to make sure Jackie hasn't fallen to her death off your roof," Robin said darkly. "That or died of malnutrition from your…"

"…nonexistent cooking skills," George finished. "Whatever reason, Robin. It's… good… to see you."

Their eyes held for a moment, hers a startled blue, his a wistful green and blue. With one more doubtful look towards Jackie, Robin nodded curtly and then drove away.

………………………………………

"I hope you still like pineapple on your pizza," George said as he opened up the freshly delivered pizza.

So this was the fine Californian cuisine she had to look forward to, Jackie thought, as she bit off a rubbery string of cheese. Her feeling of ill-usage was getting stronger by the minute, especially as she looked around the garage-slash-living-room-slash-kitchen, bedroom, bathroom and so on. She noticed her Uncle's guitar in the corner and felt something unpleasant stir in her subconscious, something she did not want to look at too closely. She turned to her uncle.

"So, George, this 'special project' of yours – were you referring to your idea of building a house over the summer or was it some other insane notion?"

"No, that was the one," George said, chewing contentedly.

"I see," Jackie said. "Funny, when you invited me here, I don't remember the part where you put me to hard manual labour for the next 3 months."

"There's a reason for that," George said, swallowing. Jackie waited for his explanation patiently. "You might not have come."

Kelso reasoning if ever she had heard it! Now the storm clouds were gathering rapidly.

"Yeah, that would have been a real tragedy if I didn't come," Jackie sneered. "Where else would you find such cheap labour?" She stood up and tossed her half-eaten slice on the ground, which the dog then pounced on and finished off. "God, I can't believe what an idiot I am! You'd think after a lifetime of being used by people, I'd see it coming by now. But no, my uncle calls me out of the blue and invites me to spend the summer with him and I actually think it's because he wants my company. Sometimes I am so gullible I amaze myself!"

"Where is this coming from?" George asked in surprise. "Jackie, of course I wanted your company. You have no idea how much I've missed you."

"I think I've got a pretty good idea. The way you never called or wrote or sent me so much as a freaking birthday card pretty much sums up how much you _missed _me," Jackie said, the feelings of betrayal that she had suppressed for the last decade rising up sharply, surprising even herself. She had made so many excuses for why she had never had any contact from the man who had been her whole world for one brief season, but now those excuses had crumbled to dust as she looked around the cramped garage he had trapped her into, all to serve his hidden agenda. He had shown her love just long enough to give her a hunger for it and then taken it away. Just like her parents. Just like Steven.

George stood up to his full height, the fire snapping in his eyes. For a moment he looked like her Uncle George – the undefeated hero. Then he drew a deep breath in, releasing it slowly.

"Jackie, there are reasons why I couldn't contact you – reasons that were all for your own good, not mine. Trust me when I tell you that there hasn't been a day when I haven't thought of you."

"Wow, that's really touching, George," Jackie said in her best tough as nails voice. "Of course, if it was true you might have called to check in on me when my father went to prison. Or when my mother took that as her cue to go whoring around the bars of Rio. Or maybe when I had no place to live and had to rely on the charity of strangers." OK, that last one was an exaggeration but it sounded satisfyingly dramatic, Jackie thought.

"I'm sorry," George said. The anguish in his voice was very real, but Jackie was too angry to hear it.

"Save it," she snapped. "Stop pretending you ever gave a shit. It's not convincing."

"I'll apologize for everything but today," George said, anger lending force to his voice. "Today I give a shit."

Jackie just looked at him unbelievingly. "You're too fucking late." Then she grabbed up her handbag and slammed out the door.

George sighed, sat down on the side of the bed and dropped his head into his hands This was going to be an uphill battle.

Jackie swiped impatiently away at her useless tears as she strode toward the house next door. Robin's warnings ringing in her ears, she tread carefully through the broken-down structure until she came to the balcony. The same old deck chair was still there, keeping vigil with the Pacific. Taking a seat, she pulled out a joint and, with a shaking hand, lit up.

It had been a mistake to think she could escape her life. It didn't matter where she ran to, the same old demons would still find her. They just took on a new shape, like the form of a once beloved uncle. But that is what happens when you are cursed.

When you are nothing.

Drawing the smoke deeply into her lungs, Jackie waited for the numbness to find her.

………………………………………

"I want to go home."

George looked up from his scrambled eggs to find a stone-faced Jackie staring him down over the folding card table which served as their dining area.

"You just got here," he pointed out.

"I was brought here under false pretences," Jackie said. "I'm not some impoverished migrant worker to be flown in so you can save a few bucks. I've called the airlines – I just need $190.00 and I'm out of here." She stuck her hand out expectantly. George's face remained impassive.

"Why don't you pay for it yourself?"

"I told you before, I don't have that kind of money. Now just fork it over so I can get back to my life before they give my job away to someone else and some salon slut moves into my room."

George stood up and carried his dishes to the bucket and hose set up in the corner. "I was never going to ask you to work for free. I'll pay you $7.50 an hour."

"Are you kidding me?"

"For every hour you work on the house with me. I'll bet that's more than the minimum wage they were paying you to push a broom around."

"You are crazy," Jackie stated. "It's hard to mess up pushing a broom around. But building a house - that has huge mess-up potential. I can't do it."

"That's not the Jackie I remember. The old Jackie never met a challenge she wasn't up to. There was nothing someone else could do that she couldn't do better."

"The old Jackie was an overconfident fool," the current version declared.

"A little naive, maybe. But a fool? I don't think so." He stood before her, lifting her chin up so mismatched eyes stared into mismatched eyes. "You are a lot more than you think you are, kid."

Jackie drew back from his touch sharply. "I'm not lifting a finger to humour your grand architect delusion. You can't build a house anymore than I can. You're just a model builder – anything over half a foot tall is beyond you."

"I trained as an architect," George corrected, "and my father built houses. Taught me a lot about the trade – among other things."

"If the crapshack next door is a sample of his work, then forgive me for not feeling much confidence in your abilities. And even if you were Pa Ingalls himself, there's no way two people can build a house in one summer."

"Maybe so, but I'm going to die trying," George vowed.

"Well, you can die alone. If you're going to hold me prisoner here, I'm not playing along with your work camp ethos." Jackie rifled through her suitcase until she pulled out a bottle of sunscreen and a transistor radio with earphones. She checked to make sure the sock rolled around her yellow pills was still as it was after she had taken her morning dose. "I'm going to go catch some rays. Wake me up when it's lunch time."

George watched her walk out the door, his jaw hardening. He then picked up a sledge hammer from the tools in the corner and strode over to the house his father had built. His father had actually been good at his job, building some of the most beautiful houses in California. It was only the house he had built for his family where he had not made much of an effort, cutting corners and using second-rate materials. George swung the hammer ruthlessly against the wall of his house, striking the first blow.

"You'd really get a kick out of your granddaughter, Pop," George muttered under his breath. "Your legacy of making your kid feel worthless is still going strong." After about ten more blows to the wall, George dropped the hammer and took a deep breath, fighting off the urge to vomit. He needed to keep his breakfast down to keep up his strength, but the new medication he was taking wasn't making that easy. He stepped back and looked over the "crapshack", as Jackie had aptly dubbed it. If ever a house needed to be taken apart and built up again, this one did.

And the same could be said for his daughter.

**A.N. Ooh! Drama! Well, I did warn you that Jackie was taking his son's role.**


	3. Revelation

**A.N. For Alex Beck (the male version of Alyssa) I'm nominating Chace Crawford who plays Nate on Gossip Girl. But feel free to visualise who you like, so long as you make him gorgeous.**

"Do you ever get like the slightest inkling that you might want to help me instead of doing absolutely nothing?"

Jackie pulled her sunglasses down slightly, gave her uncle an incredulous look, pushed them back up and replied, "Nope."

It had been five days and Jackie had stuck religiously to her resolution not to lift a finger in aid of her uncle's special project. She even went one better, dragging the old banana lounge into a position where she could watch George sweat and grunt as he moved furniture out of the house, removed window panes and crowbarred old boards. While he worked on the house, Jackie worked on her tan.

George set down the sandwich he had made for her. "Get the inkling, Jackie. I'm getting tired of your attitude."

Jackie lifted up a corner of the sandwich and pouted. "I hate turkey."

"No, you don't," George replied, turning away. When he was no longer looking, she took a bite. Immediately Guster was at Jackie's side, licking his lips and wagging his tail as he eyed her lunch.

"What are you looking at? You after my sandwich, huh?" Jackie teased the dog, pulling on his ears the way he liked.

"You've set yourself up pretty close to the cliff here," George said, peering over the edge.

"I like to have an exit strategy handy in case this place becomes too unbearable," Jackie said flippantly.

George looked out over the sea, a thoughtful expression on his face.

"Only jump after you hear the wave crash against the rock," he advised. "The water will take you out. Let it. Swim a little North and you'll see the sand. First time I did it, younger than you, I thought I'd break my neck and just sort of float to Catalina." Jackie sat up, looking at George with alarm. "You don't always get what you wish for, Jackie."

Before Jackie knew what had happened, George suddenly leaped forward over the cliff edge, disappearing into the crashing waves at least 20 feet below.

"Oh, shit!" she gasped, her heart stopping. She shot to her feet and tore down the winding path that lead to the beach, fear inspired adrenalin pumping through her veins. When she reached the beach she was just in time to see her uncle walking out of the surf, his sodden jeans and shirt clinging to his body. He was laughing and gasping for air.

"Are you totally insane?" Jackie shrieked.

"I almost saw Catalina," George shouted back. Jackie glared at him; she didn't know who she was angrier with, George for scaring her or herself for caring whether or not he walked out of that ocean. She wasn't supposed to care anymore. She turned on her heel and strode away along the shoreline, intent on getting as far from her lunatic uncle as possible. Guster, who had followed her down to the beach, ran ahead, playing tag with the waves that slid over the sand.

"Hey, Guster," a young man greeted the retriever. They were obviously old friends, judging from the way Guster was jumping excitedly in front of him. Then he raised grey-blue eyes towards Jackie and she saw a flash of recognition cross his face.

"Well, well, if it isn't little Jackie Burkhart," he mused, scanning her short denim shorts and bikini top appreciatively. "Long time no see."

"Uh… long time never see," Jackie corrected. "How do you know my name?" She in turn was covertly examining him, and was unwillingly impressed. He was about her age, tall, very nicely built with shiny floppy brown hair and a face that could make him a fortune on the silver screen, even amongst the stiff competition of Hollywood.

"Don't tell me you don't remember me?" the gorgeous specimen of manhood questioned. "OK, let me give you a clue." He grabbed her hand and went down on one knee. "My own exquisite Guinevere, I have slain fifty dragons just for the honour of rescuing your fair self."

Jackie's eyes widened as old memories bobbed to the surface. "Alex?" she cried.

"That's King Arthur to you."

"I can't believe you remember those silly games we used to make up," Jackie said, a smile lighting her face. "I can't believe you remember me."

"Well, you're not that easy to forget," Alex said with a friendly grin. "You know, that summer you came here was one of the best summers of my life. You don't forget the good times, do you?"

"I guess not," Jackie agreed, and for a moment an image of waking up in Steven's arms flashed before her. Then she resolutely pushed it out of her mind.

"So are you visiting your uncle for the summer?" Alex asked, scratching Guster's head.

"Kind of," Jackie admitted. "I'm not sure – I was planning on going home soon."

"You should stay."

Jackie looked up through her lashes shyly at the handsome boy. "Maybe. It's just pretty rough living conditions here. George doesn't even have a shower!"

"Well, I live right next door. You're welcome to come by and use our shower if you like. My mom won't mind."

"Maybe," Jackie said again.

Alex fell into step beside her as they began to reminisce about the summer when they had been fast friends. As they swapped "do you remembers", old memories Jackie had long ceased to think about kept popping up, along with old feelings.

"Do you remember those nights on the beach?" Alex asked. "Remember how George would build a fire and then he'd tell us all those old stories while we roasted marshmallows."

"Yeah," Jackie said fondly. "That was why we used to play at Arthur and Guinevere, isn't it? I remember now, he used to read to us about the Knights of the Round Table."

"And then he'd play on that old guitar of his," Alex added. "Remember how he gave you that little guitar because you begged him to teach you how to play? You practised on that thing so much by the end of the summer you were almost as good as your uncle."

"The guitar…" Jackie repeated, her brow creasing as her mind hurtled 10 years back into the past.

_It was 3 days after she had returned home to Point Place, but her heart was still back in California with Uncle George and her new best friend, Alex. At least she still had the little guitar Uncle George had given her as a parting gift. Gently she fingered the strings, playing a simple little tune George told her he had written himself when he was not much older than her._

_"Who taught you that?" The angry voice of her father interrupted her. She looked up with startled eyes._

_"No-nobody," she stuttered, remembering how her mother had told her that the way she spent her summer must be a big secret or else Daddy would be very upset with her and with Mommy. Jackie did not understand why Daddy would mind but she didn't want to make any trouble between her parents – they made scary noises when they were fighting._

_Jack Burkhart pulled the guitar ruthlessly out of his small daughter's grasp. "I don't want you ever playing this thing again, do you hear me?" Before Jackie knew what was happening, her father smashed the child-sized instrument against the side of the marble fireplace, reducing it to kindling._

_"No!" Jackie screamed, beating a small fist against her father's leg. "Daddy! No!" She cowered in fear at the face her father turned on her._

_"It's his blood coming out," her father muttered. "You're just like him. God damn your cheating whore of a mother!" His fingers fumbled with his belt buckle, sliding the leather belt out of the trouser loops, his angry stare never leaving Jackie's terrified green and blue eyes. "If I have to beat that son of a bitch out of you, I will."_

_CRACK!_

Jackie gasped as her mind escaped back to the present.

"Jackie?" Alex was concerned. "Are you OK?"

"I've got to go," Jackie said, her breathing short. She abruptly quickened her pace, sprinting back up the cliff path.

"I'll see you around," Alex called after her, wondering what he had said to upset her. He had never seen anyone's face turn so white.

Jackie ran as fast as she could up the path until she was standing in front of the old house, panting for breath.

"There you are," George said, loosening roof tiles with his hammer. His clothes were still damp from his swim. "Don't tell me you've finally come to help me out? I should tie myself to something so I don't fall off the roof in shock."

"Why wasn't I allowed to tell my father that I stayed with you?" Jackie blurted out. George looked sharply at her and Jackie saw the guilt cross his face.

"I don't - "

"That summer – ten years ago – my mother told me I couldn't ever tell my father that I spent the summer with you, that I had to say I was visiting my grandmother with her in Santa Barbara. Why couldn't I tell my father I spent the summer with his brother?" George sighed and climbed down the ladder to stand in front of Jackie. She was trembling; he reached out a hand towards her but she backed away. "Tell me!"

"Your father and I never really got along," George said.

"Why?"

"A lot of reasons. He was always something of a bully when we were kids. Then when he left to go to law school in Wisconsin to get away from my father, my dad was so mad that he cut him out of his will and left this house to me. Jack always felt like I'd cheated him because of that."

"And those were the only reasons?" Jackie prodded, not sure if she wanted to know the answer to that question. But then, she just had to know. Like picking a scab off a cut, she knew it would hurt like hell but she couldn't not do it.

"And… because he always suspected that I was your father."

………………………………………

It was strange how you could sense the absence of one person out of a whole township. How the removal of just one single person who was not even a part of your life anymore could just make Point Place with its considerable population of 1,879 seem so empty.

In the months following his wife's advent, Steven Hyde's association with Jackie Burkhart had dwindled from infrequent to zilch. The three weeks before she left they had not seen each other at all. Well, to be more accurate, she had not seen him. By some strange coincidence, his wanderings would always pass by the salon where she worked, and he would always find himself glancing in the window. If she was on a break, he would find some reason to shuffle about until she did appear, wielding her broom with that lost expression on her face. Maybe that was why he had to check on her each day – to see if that expression changed.

He suspected she was taking something. He wasn't sure if she was just hitting the film extra hard or if it was something stronger, but he knew the signs. He could not admit even to himself that he was worried about her; that small admission alone could open the floodgate to a whole can of emotions he refused to own up to. He just knew that he needed to see her each day, to make sure she was OK. Even if he felt like there was nothing he could do to make her OK.

But she had been gone for a whole week now and no-one had heard from her. The more he thought about it the more it steamed his glasses. When she had said goodbye to Mr and Mrs Foreman, Kitty had made her promise to call her surrogate parents and let them know how she was doing. It was this promise that was driving him mad, making his heart pound every time he heard that damn phone ring. Making his hopes crash every time it turned out to be somebody else calling.

Hyde pushed open the basement door and looked around the dimly lit room. Sam was describing to Fez her new strip act, complete with props.

"And then I throw away the holster and I'm left standing in my cowboy boots and this," she finished, holding up a tiny white leather G-string against her pelvis. "Although I'm thinking I need to add something to my act – spice it up."

"I can't imagine how it could get much spicier," Fez said in a raspy voice. "Oh, unless you include a horse. Or perhaps a handsome foreign stud who would let you ride him like a horse?"

"Nooo," Sam said, after considering the idea. "I don't know, my Wild West show isn't getting its usual response out here in the Sticks."

"Well, this is the _Mid_west, Sam," Donna said without looking away from the TV. "Stands to reason you'd only get a medium response."

"Hey, baby," Sam cooed, noticing Hyde at last. "How was your day?"

"Sold stuff, drank stuff, smoked stuff," he said, taking his seat.

"That's great, baby," Sam said. Hyde looked at her and wondered why her unquestioning acceptance of all he did irritated him so much. Jackie would have been on his case all the time about how much more time he was spending at the bar after work, how much more frequent the circles had become. With Sam there was no kind of standard he had to measure up to. He could come home covered in gore and carrying a severed head under his arm and she would not even make a fuss about the blood dripping on the carpet. _Of course _his inner critic said, _a whore knows better than to bite the hand that feeds her_.

"Has anybody called?" Hyde suddenly asked.

"No," Donna answered, casting him a sly glance. "Why? Were you expecting someone?"

"No," Hyde said irritably. "Who would I be expecting?"

"Oh," Fez said. "We thought maybe you were hoping to hear from Jackie."

Trust Fez to state the obvious that no-one else would be dumb enough to say. Sam was quick to rush to his defence.

"Jackie? Why would Hyde want to hear from her? I think he's made it pretty clear how much he hates that stuck-up bitch." Sam let out a trill of laughter at the idea. Hyde ground his teeth, unable to confirm or deny his wife's assessment. But Jackie's defence came from an unexpected source.

"Don't call my friend a bitch," Donna warned in a low voice. Sam's usual vacant expression became slightly more vacant.

"Your friend? Oh please! Donna, you're among your _real _friends here. You don't have to keep up appearances with us. Everybody knows you only hung out with her because she was screwing someone in the group."

"No, Sam. That's just with you."

Sam blinked, not sure if she took Donna's meaning. "Come on, Donna. Remember that slumber party? I bet you still can't think of one reason why she's your friend."

"You're right. I can't think of one," Donna said. "But I can think of twenty. Like the time she paid for part of my engagement ring. The times she always knew when something was bothering me and would nag at me until I talked it out. The time she gave up pretending to be a Dallas cheerleader at the mall so she could stay home and cheer me up when my Mom left. Or the time…"

"Fine, I get it," Sam snapped. "She had her moments. But she is gone – out of here – ancient history. It's time to throw out the old and embrace the new."

There was a pause and then a plaintive accented voice said "I miss Jackie."

"God, Fez, not you too?" Sam groaned. "Did Jackie ever wear clothes as slutty as mine? Did Jackie give you previews of things you'd normally have to shell out twenty small bills to see? Could Jackie do things to a pole that the courts have yet to rule on?"

"No. But she did let me style her glorious hair," Fez rebutted. "And she gave me pointers on how to catch rich bitches. And she is the only girl I know who really understands how to throw a good Oscars party. And on the dance floor – nobody could hold a candle to our sizzling hot moves."

"What is with you people today?" Sam yelled. "You don't give her the time of day before she leaves but now its 'boo hoo, I miss Jackie'. Well, you'd better get over it because I seriously doubt she's going to call here again."

"What?" Hyde shot to his feet. "What do you mean 'again'?" Sam eyed her husband warily.

"Again? I didn't say again."

"Yes, you did!" the three friends said. Hyde grabbed Sam and shook her slightly. "When did Jackie call? What did she say?"

"Nothing, it was nothing," Sam spluttered. Hyde shook her again. "I only told her the truth."

"What truth?"

"I just told her that nobody here wanted to talk to her and she should crawl back under her rock and leave us in peace." She looked around at the angry faces, amazed at how the tide of sentiment had turned against her. "It was the truth!"

Fez watched in awe as Hyde's muscles seemed to flex and swell under his T-shirt. He half expected his skin to turn green to complete the transformation.

"You," Hyde growled, "do not speak for us. You do not speak for me. And you don't know one fucking thing about who Jackie is and what she means to us." He gave Sam a look which made her quail before thrusting her away in disgust and striding out the basement door.

"Isn't anybody going to say burn?" Sam asked Donna and Fez in a small voice.

"That was not a burn, whore," Fez said.

Donna finished his sentence. "_That _was the truth."

**A.N. Hands up if you love a good stripper throw-down scene? Ooh! Me! Me!**


	4. Betrayal

Chapter 4

**A.N. This chapter was very much taken from the movie, so much I am hiding like a frightened churchmouse behind the "deny all affiliation with" disclaimers. But the next chapter will be branching out more, and I'll be bringing Hyde and co. back into the story. Thanks for sticking with me and I'm hoping all you angst-loving readers will give me some feedback.**

"And… because he always suspected that I was your father," George finished reluctantly.

Jackie's vision swam as George's words seeped into her soul. _Your father…_

"Jackie…"

"Shut up!" Jackie yelled, backing away.

It explained so much. Her father had never acted the same towards her after that day he had… Jackie shied away from the memory. But he had never really looked her in the eyes again. It was like he had written her off as not worthy of his attention. Even though he had given her plenty of material gifts, they had never compensated for the love he had withdrawn from her.

"It's not what you think," George said desperately.

"Oh no? I always knew my mother was a whore but for you to betray your own brother that way? You liar! I hate you! I'll hate you forever!"

"You can't even begin to know how much I hate my father," George said. "Think of it as a family tradition."

"I'm leaving," Jackie cried, stomping into the garage to grab her things. George followed her.

"I was drunk," he blurted out.

"What?"

"I had just had this big fight with Robin – back when we were dating. Jack and Pam were visiting at the time which stirred up a lot of old issues which I made the mistake of taking out on my girlfriend. So I went to this bar and got stinking drunk, so drunk they wouldn't let me drive home. I called Jack but he wasn't home that night – and Pam answered the phone." Jackie stood very still as George haltingly told his tale.

_"Whaddya doin' here?" George slurred when his sister-in-law stepped out of the Lincoln. "Where's Jack?"_

_"Jack hasn't come home yet and I couldn't very well leave you to rot in this grotty dive," Pam said, taking his arm and helping him into the car. _

_"Hey! Joe runs a quality eslab… estabish… dive." George looked over at Pam as she put the car in gear and noticed she was not as perfectly put together as usual. Her mascara was smudged and her face shinier than usual. That and the death grip she had on the steering wheel told him that anger and tears were involved._

_"So where is Jack? Did he get tired of rubbing his fancy car and high-paying job in his underachieving brother's face? Gone looking for some LA bums he can point and laugh at, I'll bet.." _

_"Uh – I think you're forgetting something," Pam rebuked. "Fancy car, high-paying job and stunningly beautiful wife." She tossed her hair, seriously miffed. It was not often that men failed to fall at her feet but this George Burkhart had a way of seeing through her, like she was just anybody! Even when she had sunbathed topless on his crummy little balcony yesterday, he had just looked blankly at her and asked if she didn't ever worry about skin cancer. As if God would ever let such a thing happen to his most perfect creation._

_"Yeah, OK," George said in a tone which meant the opposite. While on one level he found his sister-in-law attractive (the most basic, physiological level, that is), her personality was a serious turn-off. He smiled slightly as he thought of the most beautiful woman he knew. It made him feel better just to picture Robin. At least he had a girlfriend whose beauty went deeper than the surface, like there was one area of his life where he had one-upped his brother. At least, he hoped he had a girlfriend – after their fight tonight, he wasn't too sure of their current status._

_"You would think," Pam continued, "that being married to someone as fabulous as me would be enough for any man. Jack Burkhart should feel privileged to pay for all the clothes, make-up and jewellery which set off my beauty and make him the most envied man in Point Place. But no, all he ever talks about is having a baby."_

_"A baby, huh?" George said in surprise. "Jack wants the final instalment of the American dream?" Poor kid, George thought. Jack had always taken after their father. It was one of the reasons his brother and the old man could never stand each other. He pitied any child that Jack raised. Then he heard a sniff and noticed Pam wiping away a tear. "Hey, are you alright?" More tears followed the first and George was becoming ever more panicked – he could never bear to see a woman cry._

_"It's not that I don't want to have a baby," Pam said tearfully. "A little girl who looks just like me that I could dress up in cute matching outfits – that would be so much fun." George started to feel sorry for the hypothetical kid all over again to hear that its mother envisioned the child as a doll to be played with. Knowing that when the novelty of a new toy wears off it is usually discarded. He realised Pam was still talking. "… and the doctor said there was no reason why I wasn't able to conceive and that my husband should be checked out to see if the problem was with him." Now George was smirking at the thought of his perfect brother having a low sperm count – that would have been a kick in the nads to his huge ego. It was no surprise to him when Pam described how offended Jack was at the very idea. It was apparently the reason why he had stormed out of the house tonight, yelling that he wasn't going to keep footing the bills for a barren fashion plate and that if she wasn't woman enough to conceive a child then he'd start looking for someone who could._

_"Damn, that's pretty brutal," George said sympathetically._

_"I know," Pam sobbed. "He even threatened to cancel my mail order accounts with Macys and Saks. How am I supposed to live without my New York fashions? Oh George, what if he does leave me for some disgustingly fertile cow? I haven't been married to him long enough for the divorce settlement to be large enough to support my style of living."_

_"Yeah, cause that's what you should be worried about," George said, rolling his eyes. "It all comes down to money."_

_"Oh you do understand," Pam sighed. She looked over at her brother-in-law, noticing for the first time the family resemblance between him and Jack. Except for those freaky mismatched eyes of George's, they were generally similar in appearance, in the manner of brothers. One perfectly plucked eyebrow raised as the seed of an idea planted itself in her self-serving brain._

_"Well, we're here," Pam said brightly as she pulled up in front of the empty house. Really, she didn't understand why Jack was so miffed that his father had left this ugly little shack to George instead of him. Who would want this eyesore?_

_"Thanks for the lift," George said, disembarking with shaky legs. Pam was quick to take his arm, brushing her hair against his face so he could smell her expensive perfume._

_"You know, George, I think you need a little pick-me-up," Pam purred as they walked into his house. "How about I fix you a little hair of the dog to stave off that hangover?"_

_"I don't think so," George said, starting to feel a little overheated at the way Pam's body was rubbing against his._

_"Oh, come on," Pam chided. "I've got some 12 year old Scotch in my handbag."_

_"As you do," George said ironically._

_"Just one more drink," Pam coaxed, turning her seduction vibe up to full strength. "What harm is one more little drink going to do?"_

_Famous last words._

"When I woke up the next morning, your mother was in my bed. I couldn't believe that we had… Jack never came home that night."

"Oh my God," Jackie breathed, feeling nauseous at this story which strangely paralleled recent events in her life. She sat down on the end of the pull-out.

"I think in her twisted little mind she thought she was doing something honourable, choosing me as her sperm donor. Like because we were brothers it wasn't really cheating. And the upside for her was that if Jack ever got suspicious and did a blood test, the child would be chock full of Burkhart genes. He couldn't prove anything." George fisted his hands, as the feeling of being used washed back over him. The guilt he had carried with him since that day had been one of the reasons why his marriage had failed; he could never bring himself to tell Robin the truth which had created a distance between them. "I never saw my brother after that – couldn't look him in the eye. And I kept away from you because I was scared of what would happen if Jack ever saw us together, that he might suspect something and take it out on you."

"You sure called that one," Jackie said. She absently ran her palm over her calf, as though soothing the bite from her father's belt.

"Pam told me that he never suspected, that he loved you as his daughter. I didn't want to take that away from you. But then when I got that call, how Pam left you alone in that hotel room while she took off with some South American playboy, I couldn't stay away any longer." George remembered that sickening moment when he had come home from a weekend hunting trip to find a careless message left on his answering machine by his feckless sister-in-law, saying she had intended to have a nice mother-daughter vacation with Jackie but then the dashing Eduardo had swept her off her feet and it was about time that Jackie got to know her Uncle George anyway. He would find her at the Golden Sands Hotel, Room 202.

The message had been three days old.

"So, I was a mistake," Jackie said tonelessly. "A trick my skank of a mother played on my father – on both my fathers."

"No," George denied vehemently. "There are no mistakes, Jackie. It was meant to be. If it happened any other way, you wouldn't be who you are."

"That would probably have been for the best," Jackie replied sadly. "Who I am has not been going over well lately."

George took her by the hand and turned her to face him so she could see the sincerity in his eyes. For the first time she saw that his eyes were just like hers. Her father's – that is, Jack Burkhart's eyes – were brown.

"Jackie, do you remember how I used to tell you the legend of King Arthur?" Jackie nodded. "Do you remember how Arthur was conceived?"

"King Uther fell in love with the Lady Igraine, his enemy's wife. He had Merlin cast a spell to make him look like Igraine's husband. He slept with her and on that same night her husband died in battle," Jackie recited. "So what?"

"When Uther heard that if he had just waited one night he would have been able to have Igraine as a free woman, without any trickery, he was furious with Merlin for not foreseeing the future. Then Merlin told him he had foreseen the future and that's why it had to be done that way, then, on that night. Because if it had been on any other night, the child conceived would not have been Arthur." George traced a finger down Jackie's cheek, following the path of her tears. "And Jackie, think what a crime against the world that would have been."

Jackie fought against the tenderness in her uncle's – no, father's – voice. Too afraid to believe in the love she saw in his eyes.

"I don't need you," she said, trying to sound convincing. "I've gotten along without a father for the past two – no, ten – years, I don't need one now." But she did have a sudden need for something else. She got up and went for her suitcase, sorting through its contents with shaking hands. But she couldn't find what she was looking for. She turned to George with narrowed eyes.

"Where is it?" she demanded.

"Where's what?" George said. "The pills or the pot?"

"How dare you go through my personal property!" Jackie fumed. "Give them back right now!"

"That's kind of tricky, seeing as how they're probably on their way to the local sewage treatment plant."

"You flushed them?" Jackie yelled, her face turning red. "I can't believe – what right – "

"You know what right, Jackie. This is my house and, like it or not, you are my daughter. That means no pills, no grass and no more escaping into your little sun-bathing catatonia."

"So now you're going to play the outraged father?" Jackie sneered. "You're eighteen years too late!"

"Sit down for a second."

"No." George ignored her refusal and gently guided her back onto the bed. When Jackie made to get up, he pushed more forcefully down on her shoulders, holding her in place.

"Oh, you're in trouble now! That's assault! People go to prison for what you just did to me," she threatened.

George ran a hand through his hair and began another story. "My dad used to play a game. I never really understood what it was until after he was gone. The game was to make me smaller than he was. No matter what. He could be almost invisible as a human being, but I had to be smaller. So if I got good grades, I was a pussy for not playing football. If I cut my hair for him, it wasn't short enough. If I shaved it, I looked like a psycho. I never won the game. Not once. And if he couldn't make me smaller with words..." Tears stood in George's eyes, wincing as the thought of what came next. Jackie tried hard not to listen, fixing her eyes on a corner of the bedspread, but her tense posture gave her away.

"You owe me fifty dollars for destroying my property," she said.

"Jackie, I won't ever hurt you. I don't want you smaller. I want you to be happy. You're not. Not here with me. Not home at Point Place. Not alone. Not anywhere. You're what I was most of my life, Jackie. I see it in your eyes. In your sleep. In your answer to everything. You're barely alive."

"I'm not even listening," Jackie whispered.

"You know that great thing, though? Is that change can be so constant you don't even feel the difference until there is one. It can be so slow that you don't even notice that your life is better or worse, until it is. Or it can just blow you away. Make you something different in an instant." Against her will, Jackie raised her eyes to George's. "It happened to me."

George squeezed her hand and then walked slowly to the door of the garage. Before exiting, he turned halfway towards her. "Build this house with me, Jackie."

George set to work with the sledgehammer, but keeping one eye on the garage door. As the time passed his hopes fell. And then finally Jackie walked out of the garage and George's heart beat faster when he saw her hands. She was wearing the workmans gloves he had bought her.

"I need to make enough money for my plane ticket home," Jackie said, her defiant gaze not giving an inch. "I'll work for $7.50 an hour, when I make up my fare, then I'm done."

George measured her with his eyes, his mouth quirking upwards slightly. He nodded towards the side wall and handed her a sledge hammer. "You can start on this wall." She held the hammer gingerly in her palms, not sure what to do with it. "Try it," George coaxed. "It feels good." He led the way with his own hammer, pounding through the rotting timbers. Jackie did the same, hesitantly at first but then with more enthusiasm with each strike. The father and daughter worked together, for the first time in unison.

"I hated this house from the second my father told me he was leaving it to me to screw my brother over," George said conversationally, taking a good hard swing at the wall. "Twenty years of hating what you live in...what you are. This is the end of it, Jackie. I'm gonna build something of me here that I can be proud to give to you."

"Don't. I don't want it." Jackie said.

George yelled, a primal sound, as he struck the hammer into the wall again. "Do whatever you want with it. I don't care. All I want from you is for you to remember we built this house together."

"We haven't built shit. You're just tearing down your father."

"Try it. It feels good," George invited with a grin.

This time when George landed another blow to the house with a guttural cry, Jackie let out an angry grunt. It started small, but before long it had built up into a crazy cacophony of wails, yells and screams as the pair demolished that wall with a mad rage, not content with wielding their tools but then jumping up and down on the broken pieces until the neighbours thought they had both gone mad. But for once Jackie Burkhart didn't care what other people thought of her. She was too busy smashing away at her demons.

Those demons took quite a beating that day.


	5. Attraction

**Chapter 5**

**A.N. Another chapter – I'm trying to post them regular. My thanks to all my reviewers, especially Starfalls and Hyde's Bride. Your stories are so awesome, I really value your reviews. Uh, as I do with all my reviewers of course.. heh heh… someone please change the subject…**

_Three days later…_

"Thirty years of existence wiped out in three days," George said to Jackie proudly as they looked out over the empty space. The Pacific was more breathtaking than ever, now that there was no ramshackle wooden house getting in the way. "Congratulations, kid. You've got a real talent for destruction."

"So what comes next?" Jackie asked, careful to make sure her tone had the right amount of indifference. She was not about to let George know how much his special project was drawing her in. Or how good it felt to be praised for an accomplishment.

"Now, we dig," George revealed, pointing towards two shovels. "My friend, Kurt, is going to be laying out the drainage tomorrow but I thought we'd cut his work in half by starting on the pits."

"The only thing I've ever dug is Abba music and my candy pink clogs," Jackie said, crossing her arms. "Jackie Burkhart does not dig drainage pits."

"Three days ago Jackie Burkhart didn't demolish houses either," George pointed out. "Don't you ever get tired of being what other people expect you to be?" He held out the shovel.

Jackie glowered for a moment before snatching the tool. "If I get calluses I am going to freaking hunt you down, George!"

Jackie was working on her third pit when she heard someone say "So, are you looking for pirate gold or did you murder your uncle?"

Jackie squinted into the sun to see a tall tanned young man standing on the edge of her hole. "The second option," she said.

Alex jumped down into the pit. "In that case, I think the neighbourhood association has some kind of trophy ready for you." He reached for her shovel and then helped it into the soft earth with his foot. "George Burkhart isn't exactly Mr Popularity around here."

"Probably has something to do with the way he made the Fitzsimmons think he had sold this land to the city to build a heap of low-income apartments." Jackie gave a reluctant half-smile at the memory. "I thought their heads were going to explode when he dropped that little nugget."

Alex chuckled. "Classic George. You know, he used to date my mom for a while there."

"Really?"

"Yeah. Back when I was a kid. Kind of hoped they'd get married at the time."

Jackie averted her eyes. "Why would you want George as your father?" she asked, trying to make her voice sound normal.

"I don't know. He's a pretty cool guy, when you get to know him. Or so you used to think. Aren't you two getting along?"

"The perceptions of an eighteen-year-old are radically different to those of an eight," Jackie explained, climbing out of the hole and sitting on its edge. Taking a swig from her water bottle, she took the opportunity to enjoy the way Alex's tight T-shirt did little to conceal the smooth ripple of his muscles.

"I don't see why – " Alex looked up and realised Jackie was eyeing him with a sly smirk as he did her work. "Hey! How come I'm doing all the digging here?"

"Oh but Arthur! You do it so well," Jackie said in a fake-girlish voice, fluttering her eyelashes faster than a hummingbird's wings. "You're my knight in shining armour."

Alex smirked back and reached out a finger towards her cheek. "Wish I could say the same, Gwen. Most of the fair maidens I rescue are not so dirt-streaked," he said, showing her the soil on his finger.

Jackie made an outraged squeak. "A true gentleman would never mention such a thing to a lady."

"I mean no offence. Dirt becomes you." Alex eyed Jackie's dusty sweaty self with unabashed male approval. "And if you need any assistance cleaning up, I'd be happy to lend a hand with whatever bathing requirements you may have."

"You mean letting me use your shower?"

"I was thinking more along the lines of me giving you a sponge bath," Alex bantered wickedly. Jackie felt her pulse speed up a little from the look in his eye.

"Alex Beck, if anyone is dirty around here, it's you," Jackie declared. "So allow me to return your kind offer and take care of _your _bathing requirements!" So saying, she squirted the nozzle of her water bottle in his face. She laughed freely as he spluttered in mock rage, dropping the bottle when he hoisted himself out of the pit to chase her around the pegged outline of the future house.

"You'll pay for that, Burkhart!"

"In your dreams, slowpoke!"

The chase was cut short when Jackie accidentally barrelled into her biological father as he was coming around the corner of the garage. As George steadied Jackie, Alex skidded to a stop to narrowly avoid a second collision.

"Well, this seems like old times," George remarked. "Hello, Alex. Enjoying your vacation?"

"It's shaping up into a great summer, Sir," Alex replied, his gaze fixed on Jackie.

"Last one before college, isn't it?"

"Yep. I've got Berkeley waiting for me in a couple months. But until then, I am free to renew my friendship with your light-footed niece."

George looked calculatingly between Jackie and Alex, noticing the sparkle in his daughter's eye. He did not know if it was the lack of drugs, the outdoor work or the attentions of this young man, but he had not seen so much life in her face since she had stepped off that plane.

"If you're interested in earning some spare cash over the summer, I could put some work in your way," George offered casually.

"What kind of work?"

"Construction work. Jackie and I are building a house. It pays $7.50 an hour. Interested?"

"I'm listening," Alex replied as he shared another look with Jackie.

"Careful, Alex," Jackie warned. "George may look mild-mannered but he's a closet slave driver."

"Too true," George agreed. "Which reminds me, short and sassy, quit mouthing off and get back to picking that cotton."

"Yassuh," Jackie said, pulling on her forelock in submission. But as she walked away she threw back a wink and a smile to her old playmate. She meant it in a friendly spirit but it was enough to make Alex's adam's apple bob from repeated swallowing.

"So, Alex, you know how every job carries with it some kind of 'fringe benefit' to make it worthwhile?"

"Yeah," Alex sighed, his eyes still trained on Jackie's perfect ass set off by the tightest cut-off denim shorts known to man. That is until George grabbed him by the arm and looked piercingly into his eyes.

"Jackie is NOT a fringe benefit."

Alex made nervous sounds of agreement before excusing himself to find some working clothes. George nodded to himself with approval as he watched the boy run away; not bad for a first time father.

Although if Jackie kept wearing those shorts he had a feeling there would be a lot more over-protective father speeches in his future.

………………………………………

Jackie took a deep breath as she gripped the phone receiver. After that first attempt at calling the Foreman house when Sam had crushed her with barbs that the most deep-seated insecurities in Jackie believed, she had tried to forget her promise to Eric's parents that she would check in with them while she was away. But she knew that, even if her friends no longer cared about her, the gruff war veteran who had taught her to change a tire would want to know that she was alright, as would the mother hen of all the "basement babies". She could not run the risk of Sam answering the phone again, so she did the next best thing.

"Foreman & Son Mufflers," that familiar voice announced. Jackie released the breath she was holding.

"Hey, Mr Foreman," she said shakily.

"Jackie?" Red barked. "What the hell have you been doing? Kitty has been worried sick about you. It's been two weeks, God damn it! You kids, all you ever think about is listening to that crap you call music and thinking up new ways to make my hair fall out!"

"I've missed you too, Red," Jackie said with a half smile.

"Don't think you can get around me," Red growled. "So what new trouble have you been getting into? I don't like you mixing with all those hippies and drug addicts out there."

"The population of California does extend beyond hippies and addicts, Mr Foreman."

Red made a sound which conveyed his disbelief. "Are you alright? Is your uncle treating you well? Do you need any money?"

"Yes, yes and I'm earning my own money."

"Doing what?"

"Actually…"

_That night in the Foreman kitchen…_

"So, you'll never guess what the loud one is doing with her summer," Red said as he piled mashed potatoes onto his plate. Two sets of ears instantly pricked at Red's opening statement.

"Jackie called?" Kitty cried in her high-pitched voice. "Oh Red, I've been so worried. Is she alright? Does she have enough warm clothing? People always pack too lightly when they go to the coast and don't count on it getting cool at night."

Hyde carefully swallowed the food in his mouth and then said with his best zen, "So, what has she been up to?"

Sam gave her husband a shrewish look. "What do you care?" Hyde returned her look with a scowl.

"Who says I care?"

"You just asked – "

"Shut it, the two of you," Red ordered. "The way you two fight all the time, I don't know why you don't just pack in this charade and call it quits."

"Now Red, you know marriage is a sacred institution," Kitty appeased. "Even drunken Vegas marriages organised by suspiciously naïve exotic dancers."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Sam cried.

"Oh come on, Honey. You wake up on your wedding morning and your husband has hightailed it back home to Wisconsin? Most girls would take that as a hint that maybe he wasn't as into the whole death do us part thing as you thought instead of chalking it up as a memory lapse and chasing him down to interrupt his reunion with the girl he loves."

Sam gave a muffled scream and stood up from the table. "Oh yeah? Well…well your pork chops are dry and stringy!" When Kitty made a movement to stand up from the table, Sam bolted in fright. Hyde viewed her retreat with a satisfied smirk.

"So, I guess no-one here gives a rat's ass that Jackie is building a house," Red mused out loud.

"What?!"

"Yep. She was telling me all about it today." As Kitty and Hyde demanded further details, he relayed the half-hour conversation he had shared with Jackie. Normally two minutes of conversation with a teenage girl was over Red's limit, but when a girl spoke with such a sound grasp of building fundamentals as Jackie (and fixing things had always been Red's chief hobby), the time flew by. "I'm not surprised she's taken to it so well. Any girl that can learn how to change a tire, replace spark plugs and find the U-joint in one day – well, building a house will be a piece of cake."

"Oh, good for Jackie," Kitty cheered as she cleared the plates. "She seemed so lost after she and Steven – you know." She sent a pitying look towards an uncomfortable Hyde. "It sounds like she has found her feet again. Is she making new friends as well?"

"She did keep talking about some 'Alex' character," Red said, making Hyde's neck muscles swivel sharply.

"Alex?" he repeated. "What kind of stupid name is that?" Red gave Hyde a measuring look that made his face heat up.

"Named for Alexander the Great, I guess. You know who he was, don't you, Steven? Some foreign upstart who managed to take over half the world because all the lazy dumbasses were sitting around on their butts thinking no way was anyone going to come along and take away what was theirs. But then, that's what happens to dumbasses who don't know how to value what they have."

"Gee Red," Hyde said sarcastically. "If only I could penetrate the clever subtext of your story."

"Well, here's your first clue," Red said. He then slapped Hyde upside the head, walked out of the kitchen and yelled from the living room "Dumbass!"

"Touche," Hyde acknowledged ironically, rubbing his head.

**A.N. You like?**


	6. Paralysis

Chapter 6

**A.N. Thank you for the plentiful reviews to my last chapter. I've made this chapter a little longer than my standard to match your generosity.**

The inclusion of Alex in the working party helped to lessen much of the tension that still existed between Jackie and George. It was not that she was accepting him as her father now, but having someone around who assumed that they were uncle and niece made it easier to fall back into that old pattern and no more was said about Jackie's origins. Whenever George tried to approach that subject, he was quickly shut down by his daughter so he sighed, tried to be patient and made the most of the slight lightening of hostility. He found the most effective method of communicating with Jackie, strangely enough, was through building the house. One day he had been looking at the architectural plans he had drawn up and sensed someone reading over his shoulder.

"This room here is where your bedroom will be," he said casually, making Jackie jump. "From this window you'll be able to see the sun set over Pelican Rock."

"Whatever," Jackie bluffed. Her fake disinterest was betrayed when she said "What's with all the half-circles?"

"That's the symbol for the doors," George explained. As tentatively as a squirrel accepting an acorn, Jackie gradually became fascinated enough that before too long she was sitting next to George, soaking in his words as he explained the legend used in architectural drawing. When she hesitantly asked questions about why the eaves had to be this length or what a load bearing wall was, he was happy to satisfy her curiosity. From that time, talking about the house – designing it, planning it, building it – became a common language that they could use to speak freely with each other.

Alex was a pleasant distraction as well. His sunny nature had a knack for finding fun in the most mundane tasks. They would work hard during the day, talking all the time or pulling childish pranks on each other, taking quick swimming breaks whenever they needed to cool off. Alex would usually jump off the cliff with a joyous yell as expertly as George did, but Jackie could never bring herself to make that leap. A couple of times she got as far as running up to the cliff edge but each time she stopped short, muttered something about stupid show-offs and turned towards the cliff path. The Californian summer sun being what it is coupled with the sweaty work of construction had the teens jumping in and out of that ocean like dolphins, but George made no comment. To see Jackie laughing and shrieking like the young thing she was – that was worth any schedule delays.

Not to mention that he was finding himself tripping over eager helpers these days. Alex had been the first. Then a few days later two of his friends came by, took one look at Jackie as she was bending down, checking the level of the cement slab that had been newly set, and offered their services on the spot. Then of course as soon as their girlfriends heard about the new attraction at the Burkhart building site, they immediately enlisted so as to keep an eye on their men. When Jackie showed no sign of trying to lure Jamie and Rick away, the girls accepted her into their ranks, initially on the basis of keeping your enemies closer but then eventually liking her for who she was. As soon as the sun set, the young people would gather on the beach, build a fire, roast sausages and pass around cold beers. Jamie and Rick were both characters and kept the group in stitches recounting the 'burns' they had pulled off in their colourful careers. Jackie became a rival at the funny story art solely by describing the various misfortunes of Michael Kelso. The girlfriends, Amber and Shelley, were privately sceptical that anyone so stupid could possibly exist and so gave Jackie extra points for creativity.

But even better, in Jackie's secret opinion, were the nights when her new friends went home after the working day and it was George, Jackie, Robin and her two sons around that campfire. Sometimes Alex would join them and then it was just like going back ten years, only this time George was telling the two young boys his thrilling pirate legends.

Robin had been calling in most days with a basket of food, still the gracious lady bountiful to her undeserving ex. Ryan and Adam, who were 8 and 7, would tumble after her like a pair of energetic puppies, utterly blown away at the idea of building a house. They were never happier than when George gave them a task to do. Lately he had them stripping the old paint off a pair of interior doors he had rescued from a torn down nineteenth century mission, and he found the youngest members of his crew to be his two most dedicated workers. Their mother would watch over them with grateful eyes, and George didn't need to ask what she was feeling. He understood well enough from the glow he felt every time he heard Jackie's laugh. There was nothing like watching your child engaged 100% in the business of living, finding joy in putting their heart into their work. From things Robin had let slip, he knew Ryan and Adam's father was not the kind of guy who showed much interest in his kids. He was diligent in providing for their physical needs, working hard at buying and selling a good slice of the real estate pie, but when it came to providing for more basic needs, well, he was just not that kind of Dad.

"Jackie is looking well," Robin observed as she sipped a glass of red wine. They watched as Alex sawed a rafter in half while Jackie stood back to supervise the process with her best bossy manner. "When she first got here she seemed a little distant."

"We had some issues to deal with," George acknowledged. "But I think we're getting there."

"Do those issues have anything to do with the fact that she has your eyes?"

George sent Robin a swift look but she continued to calmly eat her chicken avocado salad.

"I don't suppose it would do any good to say those eyes run in the family?"

"No, it wouldn't. She is too much like you to be anyone else's daughter. I'm amazed I didn't see it ten years ago – the way you were with her back then. I don't think I've ever seen you as captivated by another human being as you were by that little girl."

"Except for you," George pointed out. Robin met his eyes for a moment and then looked away.

"Were you?" she asked, pulling up stalks of grass absently. "You know, out of the six years we were married, I hated two of them."

"Well, that's better statistics than I thought," George said. "Which years?"

"The first and the last."

George picked at his ham sandwich as he thought over Robin's words. Robin frowned.

"You're too thin, George. From what you used to be, anyway."

George did not go into that issue. This was not the time to explain his weight loss; he was having too good a time living in a world where no-one knew why he had a small appetite and popped pain killers like M&Ms.

"Why the first and the last?" he asked his ex-wife. Robin set her fork down to study George's face.

"The first because I wasn't sure you really loved me... the last because I wasn't sure I really loved you."

George nodded. After a pause he said "Jackie is my daughter."

Robin drew in a deep breath. "Why didn't you ever tell me?"

"There were so many reasons why I didn't deserve to be with you," George admitted. "I guess I couldn't just hand you the clincher."

"You are such an idiot," Robin said, but she did not say it with anger. "What I don't get is – Pam? You never even liked her."

"Apparently liking doesn't have much to do with it when a lot of alcohol and a scheming seductress is involved." George looked over to where Jackie was poised barefoot on the rafter in ballerina stance as she teased Alex. "Still, I can't really say I regret it. I mean, of course I regret hurting you, Robin, but I don't regret that night. I don't regret Jackie."

Robin smiled gently at George and without thinking placed her palm against his cheek. He leant into her touch, closing his eyes at the sensation.

"I was setting the support beams this morning," George mused, "this cool breeze rolled through. And it struck me as strong as anything ever has. That I'm happy today."

"What have you been before today?"

"It was just that, maybe the way the sun struck the ocean, the sound of the waves. It was simple, whatever it was. Then I started thinking about the last time I felt this good." George sighed as Robin took her hand away. "It's been a long time."

"Do you remember?"

"The only time I can think of for sure, was ten years ago. I was holding onto Jackie in the ocean, saving her from the waves. Her head was pressed against my chest. I could feel her heart racing. And I remember I kissed her hair."

"I remember that. I think I've got a photo of it somewhere."

The once married couple looked deeply into each other's eyes, feeling that old connection that in their youth they had taken for granted. But they were not young people anymore; the possibilities of their lives had shrunk down to pinpoints. So Robin sighed and stood up.

"Eat your lunch, George," Robin said. She turned to walk away, ready to join her small sons in their task of staining the interior doors. Then George spoke to her back.

"You were wrong about the first year, you know?"

It took Robin a second to understand he was saying he loved her when they were married.

"I've been wrong a lot in my life," she admitted.

"Hindsight," George said wryly. "It's like foresight without a future."

Robin nodded, still with her back to George, and then walked away.

………………………………………

He had her number now.

At Kitty's insistence, Red had demanded Jackie's phone number from her the next time she called him. Kitty had written it in large chalk numbers on the message board, right down to the California area code. Now when Hyde walked into the kitchen, it was all he could see – those big white numbers.

Taunting him.

It seemed everywhere he turned everyone was talking about Jackie. Fez and Donna were always bringing her up, and each night over dinner Red would relay the latest update with "the house that Jackie built" gleaned from their daily muffler shop phone chat. Then after dinner Kitty would find some excuse to call Jackie to make sure she was being careful and not stepping on any rusty nails. By some strange coincidence, Kitty would always choose times when Hyde was in the kitchen to make these calls. A few times she would cover the mouthpiece with her hand and ask him 'do you want to talk to Jackie?' in an exaggerated whisper. But he had no answer to that query. He would just stand motionless until Mrs Forman shook her head in disappointment and went back to her conversation. The irony was that she thought he was being his usual zen self. The truth was not nearly so cool.

He was paralysed.

It was hard to trace back when this strange condition had crept up on him. His first clear memory was just after the Stacey Wannamaker fiasco, when Jackie had asked him for a glimmer of hope that they might have a future together. He remembered the crippling indecision that had gripped him just before he copped out with an "I don't know", remembered feeling like his feet were nailed to the ground as she walked away from him when all he wanted was to run after her, to take back his uncertain words. Ever since that day, every time when he faced a crossroads in his relationship with Jackie, he was about as decisive as Bambi staring down the grill of a semi-trailer – and he pretty much met the same fate. He would just drift towards the easiest option, even if that option meant staying in a marriage that reminded him more of his parents' disastrous relationship each day.

So now here he was, sitting at the kitchen table with the telephone under his hand, as tense as a long tailed cat in a room full of rocking-chairs. All because of that damn phone number blaring at him from across the room. Even that tiny decision of whether to call his ex-girlfriend was a choice that froze him to his chair. Because once that first step was taken, who knew where it would lead to? What if he tried and failed? So long as he did nothing, pretended he didn't care, he was protected. He could just keep banging his stripper wife, get high, break laws and no-one would guess just how deeply one ninety-five pound brunette could destroy his peace of mind.

Yeah, that sounds like a plan for the next 50 years. Okay, more like 10, the way his life was headed.

Hyde groaned and put his head in his hands. He was no good at this. The only reason he and Jackie had lasted so long was because she would always put in 90% of the effort and he would meet her for the last 10. He realised now that, on some level, he had counted on that holding true. That if he just flaunted Sam enough, it would push her over the edge and she would pull the bimbo off him by her bleached hair and throw her out of the basement. That if he could burn her just right she would drop her I-don't-care-anymore act and rail at him for breaking her heart which would be the same as saying that she loved him. That was how they worked – only when she had made herself completely vulnerable could he allow himself to make some small zen gesture that was his way of saying he felt the same. But now, there were no more demands, no more histrionics and ultimatums.

No more Jackie.

BRRRINNGGG!

Hyde snatched the phone receiver from its cradle. "Jackie?" he cried hopefully.

"Uuh… last time I checked, no," Eric answered. "You see, I'm made of flesh and blood, not hell fire."

"Foreman," Hyde said tonelessly. "It's you."

"And I'm just tickled six shades of pink to talk to you too, Hyde."

"Sorry. I thought it was… someone else."

"You mean the midget carpenter? Yeah, Red told me about her new calling last time we spoke. Yet another reason why Jackie makes a better son than I do. I mean, I can deal with the fact that she can hold a flashlight better than me, but building a house? There's no way I can top that, not unless I come home with a dead commie strapped to my back. But hey, it's good to hear you two are on speaking terms again."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, you were expecting her call – that must mean you're talking. Good to know, even if she is the devil, because if I have one more person telling me how miserable you are since she left…"

So much for his inscrutable zen.

"We aren't talking, Foreman," Hyde said, not even bothering to challenge Eric's last statement. "I haven't heard from her since she left for California four weeks ago."

"Oh," Eric said. There then followed the awkward pause in which he tries to figure out how to extricate his foot from his mouth.

"But I'm fine with it," Hyde declared. "It's good that she's on the other side of the country. It's not like I could do anything anyway, what with having a wife and all."

"Whoa, that still sounds really weird – you having a wife. Kind of hard to imagine." Eric laughed a little. "It's funny but I can see you marrying Jackie before you'd marry a stripper."

Hyde knew he would regret asking this but the question came out anyway. "Why do you say that?"

"It's just that before you and Jackie entered into your unholy alliance, you would date the easier kind of girls – well, 'date' may be putting it strongly, since you hardly ever went back for seconds. It sounds like from what everyone has told me about Sam, you included, that she isn't much different from those girls that bored you after one night. At least with Jackie you were with her for over two years and you never seemed bored. Aggravated, sure, but not bored. But hey, you married this girl so I guess there's more to her than it sounds, right?"

"You would think that," Hyde agreed. _But you'd be wrong_, he finished silently. "So Foreman, enough of this pansy feelings talk. Anything interesting happening in your life? And by interesting I mean something I can laugh at and burn you with in years to come."

"Changing the subject, are we? Am I getting too close to the sweet and tender Steven that hides behind that gruff exterior?"

"Hey, since we're talking about once in a lifetime love that we've tossed away, I bet you'd like to hear about Donna. Man, she and Randy just can't get enough of each other. Like the other day I walked in on them in the basement and he had his hand all the way up her…"

"Alright, Alright! I give! No more Jackie _or _Donna talk. Truce?"

"Truce," Hyde agreed.

"Good." There was a pause. Then… "I wish Jackie was here."

"Foreman!"

"No, I just mean now she's so into the handyman stuff, she could probably fix this hole in my roof. Yeah, I woke up last night and guess what – the monsoon has come to the village and it left its calling card on my head. Now I've got an all natural skylight in my mud hut."

"I can't believe you're supposed to be the man of learning in that village. I'm sure someone over there knows how to fix a roof."

"There is, but I run the risk that fixing the hole when the roof is weakened by all the rain could actually cause more damage. You know, you step onto the roof to fix the gap and next thing you know instead of having a hole the size of your fist it's now the size of your butt from where you fell through."

"That would be your luck," Hyde chuckled. "So with those choices, how do you pick the right one?"

"I don't know, Man," Eric said. "I guess the only wrong move is to do nothing."

"What did you say?"

"Is the line breaking up? I said the only wrong move…"

"Yeah, I heard you," Hyde said. "Foreman, I've got to go."

"What? Why?"

"There's something I've gotta do. Catch you later, Man."

Before Eric could ask for further clarification (or even ask to speak to his mother who was waiting on his call) Hyde had hung up, grabbed his keys and was out the door. Sam would be just finishing up her shift at the strip club; he hoped the tips had been generous tonight because she was going to need some cheering up after hearing what he had to say.

He was finally going to do something to deliberately change the direction of his life for the better. He waited for the crippling fear to kick in at this thought, bracing himself to fight it, but strangely enough it was gone.

The paralysis was broken.


	7. Sabotage

Chapter 7

**A.N. Apologies, sorry and my bad for taking so long with this update. Next week will be on time, I promise.**

That old expression "money burning a hole in my pocket" had never had greater meaning for Jackie Burkhart than since she had come to California.

It had taken a little over a week to earn her air fare back to Point Place. When George had reluctantly handed the crumpled notes over, she had immediately gone to Alex to ask him to drive her into the city so she could purchase her plane ticket. Whether it was by accident or cunning intent that Alex parked his car between Fairfax and La Brea Avenues is debatable. All that can be said was that by the time Jackie had walked to the end of what was fast becoming known as the hottest shopping district in LA, her pockets were empty, her eyes dazed and she was clutching three shopping bags of clothes.

"Never mind," Alex consoled, guiding her back to his sporty convertible. "There's always next week."

But then next week Shelley coaxed Jackie into visiting her mother's favourite day spa, where Jackie had such a great time that the $200 price tag seemed like a wise investment. Then the next week the 'new gang' took her to Tijuana where you can pick up silver jewellery and leather goods at rock bottom prices (and where she had seven marriage proposals by the day's end). Then the week after that Ryan and Adam begged her to take them to Disneyland, which can be pretty pricey when you are shouting two young boys who can eat their own weight in Disney burgers.

Now she had been in Cali for two months. It had come to the stage where George paid her over her earnings cheerfully, knowing she would have spent every cent of it before she could reach the travel agency. Not that she was so hell bent on catching the first flight back to Wisconsin anymore, but the practical side of her felt like she should organise her ticket home for the end of the summer.

Jackie clutched the roll of bills in her jean pocket as she walked down Santee Alley. Honestly, you would think every retailer in Los Angeles was in a conspiracy to keep her here. Of course, maybe it wasn't the smartest thing to walk through these tantalising shopping districts on her way to the booking office. It was almost as if she was sabotaging herself.

As Jackie stopped outside of an inviting shoe store window display, she rolled this notion over in her mind. Is that what she was doing? Was she deliberately putting herself in temptation's path to keep herself here? But she had to go home eventually; this was supposed to be just a vacation, not a new life.

A new life.

Without thinking about what she was doing, Jackie walked into the store and stabbed a finger at half a dozen pairs of leather boots, sending the shop assistant scurrying to find her size. As she pulled on each pair, any one of which would swallow up her week's wages, she began to turn her thinking over. She had always assumed that one day the summer would end and she would have to go back to her old life in Point Place. But what was there to go back to? A lowly position in a second rate hair salon. Friends who ignored her. No family. No boyfriend.

She shook her head, steering her thoughts away from that particular path. She had been largely successful in avoiding memories of Steven. Here, so far away, she could go for hours, even a couple of days without being reminded of her ex-boyfriend, a very different story to when she was back in Point Place where everything reminded her of him. She had once broken into tears when a customer had asked her to watch over her poodle while she had her cut because the dog's soft springy hair reminded her of Hyde. But when she was laughing with Alex or girl-talking with Amber or hammering nails into her father's house, her thoughts were not mired in the past. For the first time in a long time, she felt like her life was moving forward.

And then there was her father. Jackie was growing used to thinking of him in those terms, although she had not yet claimed him as such with spoken words. Jackie put aside the butter-soft suede boots and ambled to the men's section of the shoe store which had a nice pair of quality tan loafers. George could really use some new shoes; the ones he wore now were being held together with duct tape and a prayer. Jackie frowned as she thought of George. What would happen to her father if she went back to Point Place? Lately she had been making sure he ate three meals a day, for he was so skinny he could give Eric a run for his money, not to mention all those pain killers he took for his bad back. If she wasn't around to look after him, who would?

She was not sure exactly when it happened, when that feeling of betrayal had fallen away from her relationship with here uncle-slash-father. Maybe it had been displaced by the memory of the love she had felt for him as a child, that long ago summer when he had cherished her more lovingly than the parents who had raised her. Or maybe that love was more than a memory. Maybe it had always been a part of her, the foundation stone of her former belief that she was the best of everything and well-loved by all her knew her, because there had once been someone who had seen her through such biased eyes.

As Jackie absently handled the men's shoes, her mind drifted back to the discovery she had made last week.

_Flashback_

"George, what is this? Is this one of your models?"

George walked over to find his daughter kneeling before a large miniature house. It had been wrapped in a sheet and placed on the highest storage shelf of the garage, but apparently that had not been proof against Jackie's curiosity.

"Not exactly," her father replied. "It's a dolls house." He leaned over and flipped a latch on the side of the house and swung it open on its hinges. The action caused tiny battery operated lights to turn on and Jackie drew in her breath sharply at the incredible detail of the toy. Each room, every piece of furniture, was lovingly crafted, as marvellously intricate as a Van Eyck portrait.

"It's amazing," Jackie breathed reverently.

"It's yours," George said simply. Jackie turned her head sharply, surprised. "I started making it ten years ago, the day you went back home." He remembered the black depression of that day, the last day he would see his daughter for who knew how many years. He needed to do something positive to keep himself from being sucked into the hopelessness, so he made his daughter a doll house fit for a princess, keeping his mind fixed on that far off day when he would give her this gift, this proof that he had kept her in his heart. "I added to it each year, thought of little touches – if you fill up the water tank and then turn the faucet on the bath, running water comes out. And here, if you push this button on the side of the little piano – " Jackie did so and at once a silvery melody played from a victriola.

"I remember that song," Jackie cried. "That was my favourite song! That was the song you wrote for me and played the night before I left. But then later I couldn't remember how it went." She had been so sad at the lost memory. Sometimes when she had very good dreams she would remember a string of chords from the missing song. And she would wake up smiling.

"I never thought it would be 10 years before I had a chance to give it to you," George said with a sad smile. "I was kind of hoping our paths would cross a lot sooner."

"You really were thinking of me," Jackie said slowly, carefully lifting out a tiny doll from inside the house. On closer examination she saw the doll was an exquisite little girl with fine black hair, one green eye and one blue eye. There were two other dolls – one of a tall black haired man and one of a petite blonde woman. It was as though George had created the life he had always dreamed of – the woman he loved, his daughter, himself and a beautiful house – all in miniature.

"I told you, Jackie. Not a day went by that I haven't thought of you."

And for the first time, Jackie believed him.

………………………………………

"Shopping again, Gwen?" Jackie turned around sharply to find Alex casually lounging against the door of his car. Damn, he looked good when he lounged. "So sweet of you to keep the LA economy moving along all on your lonesome."

Jackie added an extra swivel to her hips as she walked over to her oldest friend. "What can I say? I'm an excellent shopper. When you're this good at something, it would be criminal not to use your talent."

"Too true," Alex agreed as he snaked an arm around her waist, drawing her closer. "I fully support taking every opportunity at practising what you're gifted at. By the way, have I mentioned lately what an amazingly gifted kisser I am?" Jackie giggled as Alex bent his face closer, proving his boast as his lips melded smoothly with hers. Her response this time was unhesitating, unlike the first time he had kissed her. Her mind drifted back two weeks ago…

_Flashback_

"Jackie, how much longer are you gonna be in that shower for?" Alex complained from the other side of the bathroom door.

"As long as it takes!" Jackie called back, luxuriating in the sensation of needle fine jets of hot water soothing her tired muscles. Living in a garage had turned the basic right of the shower into a luxury, and luxuries needed to be savoured. No matter how impatient sweaty boys became.

"But it's my shower," Alex pointed out.

"Actually, it's your mothers and she told me I could use it as much as I wanted."

"I'm warning you, Burkhart, you've got 30 seconds. Then I'm staking my claim on that shower, whether you're in it or not."

Jackie laughed derisively. "You talk better than you stake."

When silence followed, Jackie chalked up another win on her tally sheet and went back to massaging shampoo through her raven tresses. Her eyes were closed and her ears temporarily blocked as she rinsed the shampoo away, which was why she jumped a foot in the air when she backed into a body. A male body. Her mouth fell open as she wiped the water out of her eyes. A naked male body.

"Alex, what the hell?"

"Hey, I told you what was going to happen," Alex said as he moved into the jet stream of hot water. "I take the fact that you're still here to mean you were hoping I'd join you."

Jackie folded her arms over her breasts and fixed Alex with her most forbidding glare. "You thought wrong."

"My mistake," he replied with a charming smile. "I guess this is your cue to exit the shower with shrieks of maidenly modesty." Of course, that was exactly what the old Jackie would do, Jackie the good girl who was much too well bred to shower with boys. Okay, she had made one exception for a certain curly-haired delinquent but aside from that aberration, she had a clean record. But there was something about sparring with Alex that always got her blood pumping, or maybe it was the sight of water sluicing over his well formed chest that was responsible for her rapid pulse. No matter, she was standing her ground.

"Screw that! I was here first! You get out!"

Alex ignored her demand. "Hey, can you pass me the shampoo bottle? Unless you've used it all, which I wouldn't put past you. And while you're here, why don't you make yourself useful and scrub my back."

"Sure thing. Let me just find some steel wool and I'll get right on that."

The rest of the shower passed trading jibes at each other. If Alex had let his eyes wander below Jackie's neck she would have been out of there in a heartbeat, but because he acted like the same teasing fellow she had always known, somehow Jackie felt secure enough to finish her shower in his presence. Of course, when she left him in the shower she made sure to flush the toilet on her way out, chuckling at his yelps when his shower turned icy.

What Jackie failed to realise is that once you allow a boy into your shower, it creates a precedent. So it really should not have come as a shock to her when the same thing happened the next day. But when it happened the day after that, she put her foot down.

"Alex, this has got to stop," she declared. "Friends do not take showers together."

"Depends what kind of friends they are," Alex replied, his eyes searching her face for something. All he saw was a dismayed surprise when she caught his meaning.

"But… No. I thought we were just friends."

"What you think, you know, doesn't have much to do with reality. I mean, I hope I'm not the first to tell you this." Indecision was written all over Jackie's face, giving Alex the courage to move a step closer. "How about you let me kiss you? Maybe that will clear this whole thing up for you."

Jackie nibbled her bottom lip uncertainly. "Okay, but then we'll just be friends. Okay?"

"Okay. I guess."

Alex wrapped his arms gently around this girl that had prompted more than a few cold showers for him this summer. He made good use of this one chance, kissing her with slow thoroughness. When he was finished, he drew back to await the verdict. His heart dropped when Jackie looked back with a blank look on her face, her wet eyelashes standing out around her unique eyes like twin starfish. Then suddenly she wrapped her hand behind his neck, bent him down to her height and kissed him back with enthusiasm.

"Guess this is going to complicate things," Jackie murmured between kisses.

Alex shrugged, yet still managed not to break the kiss. "Probably. But on the upside, think about the savings we'll make on the water bill. Greenpeace would be proud."

………………………………………

"Meet you on the roof in an hour?" Alex proposed as he pulled up in front of George's half finished house.

Jackie nodded and kissed Alex goodbye. Truly, he was right about being gifted at kissing. He could easily go pro. He could kiss for his country. Yet she was grateful that he sensed she was not ready to go beyond their make out sessions. He never pressed her for more than she was ready to give.

As Jackie walked towards George's unfinished house, she surveyed what had been done with satisfaction. The house was definitely starting to take shape now. The foundation was laid, the heavy framework in place. These last few days they had been nailing the roof tresses into place. Tomorrow they would get started on the flashing and insulation. The guys were especially excited about that because they would finally get to use the nail gun.

As she swung a shopping bag which outlined a shoe box, contemplating the skeletal house with more pride than she had ever found in any other project, it occurred to her that she had never enjoyed working so much as she had while building this house. It was such an amazing feeling to be part of something so permanent, something that would probably outlive her. Not only had she found great enjoyment in the process, but it had given her back some of her confidence in herself. She was actually good at this; her father, his tradesmen friends, they had all remarked on how quickly she picked things up. Jackie smiled and hummed Sinatra's "I did it my way" as she turned towards the garage where her father would be throwing something together for dinner. She hoped Robin had come by with more of her gourmet delicacies; she was getting tired of takeaway. Maybe she should ask Robin for some cooking lessons…

"So, was it a long queue at the booking office?" George asked as she walked through the door. His amused smile as he stared at her shopping bag told Jackie he already knew she had failed to reach her objective.

"Something more important came up," she replied, holding up the bag.

"New shoes? Fair enough. I guess a pretty girl can't run around barefoot."

"They're not for me," she said with a wide grin, offering the box to him. With raised eyebrows he peeked under the lid.

"You bought me new loafers?" George was shocked; it had been a long time since anybody had given him a present. The eager shyness on Jackie's face as she waited for his reaction morphed into disappointment.

"You don't like them? I can swap them for something else if they're not - "

George dropped the shoes on the couch and cut Jackie off with a bear hug, lifting her off her feet.

"I love them," he said emphatically. "Almost as much as I love you."

"Really?" she said in a little-girl-lost kind of voice, returning his hug and nestling her face against his shoulder.

"Don't ever doubt it, kid," he said gruffly. "Although you shouldn't be wasting your money on me."

Jackie shrugged. "I can't think of anything better to spend it on."

"Not even your ticket home?"

Jackie slowly shook her head. "It can wait," she said. An idea was brewing in her head but it was too early for sharing.

"Oh, by the way, one of your friends from back home phoned you last night when you were on the beach," George said, scrabbling though the clutter on the table for a piece of paper. He handed the phone message to Jackie and her heart skipped a beat when she read the name. "He said he'd wait for you to call him back.

Jackie crumpled the piece of paper in her hand, tremors of anger – or was it fear? – vibrating through her. _Steven would be better off waiting on hell to freeze over._

"Dad," Jackie said abruptly, halting him as he was walking out the door. "There's something I need to talk to you about."

George stared at her in wonder. He had not dared to hope he would ever hear Jackie address him as 'Dad'. Then he saw her pain-filled eyes and his focus was all for her. "You can talk to me about anything, Jackie."

Jackie took her father's hand as he sat beside her on the couch. "How would it be if I didn't go back to Point Place next month but stayed on a little longer than we planned?"

"A little longer?"

"More like much longer. Extra long longer." Jackie took a deep breath and made the plunge. "Dad… I want to stay."

**A.N. A Jackie-centric chapter, I know, but I'll even it up next week when we will see what Hyde has been up to.**


	8. Waiting

Chapter 8

**A.N. Hope you like this chapter – it has almost all the gang, not to mention a certain flashback I trust you will find satisfying. Please drop me a line stating point of view.**

"Just call her!"

Hyde scowled at Donna and Fez who were standing before him, arms folded over chest, in a united front against his stubbornness.

"I already did that."

"Do it again!"

"I know what I'm doing," Hyde snarled.

"Really?" Donna said sceptically. "Funny thing, last time I heard you say that was just before you got drunk in a beer warehouse instead of having a heart to heart with Jackie so she wouldn't leave your sorry ass. Say, how did that work out for you?"

"Look, her uncle said he would give her the message. When Jackie is ready I'm sure I'll be hearing from her – one way or another."

"What makes you so sure?" Randy asked, more curious than confrontational. But then his interest was not as vested.

"Because I've seen this movie before and I know how it ends," Hyde explained. "This is just like that time when Donna ran off to California because Eric hurt her feelings. Remember, Donna? When you came back you admitted that you all you did was mope over Eric."

Randy looked somewhat put out to hear this. "Huh! Don't know why you'd mope over a guy who'd dump you by post."

"There was more to Eric than him dumping me," Donna said sharply to her boyfriend. "And I'm not really seeing the similarity, Hyde,"

"Then open your eyes! I was a jackass to Jackie – I admit that. So she's run as far away from me as she can so I'll miss her and ask her to come back. But if I know my Jackie she's going to be a hell of a lot more depressed than me because I'm used to being on my own but she can never handle it."

"I remember that summer," Fez recalled. "But that time it was Donna who called Eric and Eric never called _her _back."

"That's right," Donna agreed. "I was really steamed with him about that too."

"Donna," Hyde said patiently. "Don't you remember the reason why he didn't call you back?"

Donna smiled at the memory. "Because he was flying to California to come for me." Randy frowned at his dreamy-eyed girlfriend and noisily cleared his throat.

"Did you swallow a bug, Randy?" Fez inquired.

"No."

"Then please stop with the hacking noises. I am trying to follow Hyde's reasoning."

"It's very simple, Fez. The reason Jackie hasn't called me back is because she is probably on her way back home as we speak."

Donna and Fez looked at each other with matching mystified expressions which they then turned on their smugly confident friend.

"Hyde, do you really think that Eric turning me down after I broke up with Kasey is in the same league as you dumping Jackie and marrying a Las Vegas stripper?"

"It's not like it was a _real _marriage, Donna," Hyde reminded her, using his how-many-more-times-do-I-have-to-go-over-this tone.

"Jackie does not know that," Fez pointed out. "Why would she be running into your arms when she thinks you're married?"

"C'mon, Fez, I'm sure you guys must have told her that was all a stupid mistake by now," Hyde said. He took in their blank expressions. "You haven't told her?"

Fez and Donna looked a little ashamed. "Our… ah… conversations have been short," Fez admitted. Donna nodded sadly.

"Yeah. The couple of times I've called her she doesn't really say much and then she makes up some bogus excuse for cutting the call short."

Fez looked at Donna with pity. "Oh, Donna, I am so sad for you that Jackie is giving you the comb over."

"I think you mean 'brush off', Fez."

"Maybe I can put in a good word for you. I would have done it last time I spoke to her if we hadn't been interrupted by the mattress inspection police wanting to check the serial number on her mattress." Fez nodded at his friends. "Apparently they take that sort of thing very seriously out west."

"As I was saying," Donna continued, rolling her eyes in Fez's direction, "if Jackie knows you aren't really married, she didn't hear it from us."

This unsettled Hyde, but only briefly. "Well, I'm sure Mrs Foreman would have told her. After all, it's been two weeks since Sam left. No way would Kitty hold back that piece of gossip, especially since she's been trying to throw us back together from the start. "

"That's another thing; why did you wait two whole weeks before calling Jackie? I thought you were finally going to do something but you've just been sitting around this basement like always."

"Donna, I couldn't just pick up the phone and call her straight away. Sam had just left me. I had to let some time pass so it didn't look like I was jumping from girl to girl." At least that was the excuse Hyde was putting around. He was hardly about to admit it had taken all of two weeks to scrape together enough grit to make that phone call last night.

"And of course two weeks is the universally accepted mourning period for a wife," Randy inserted sardonically.

Fez frowned in puzzlement. "But I thought Sam wasn't your wife? Didn't you tell us – "

Hyde rolled his eyes. "I know, technically she wasn't my wife, and don't I wish I'd had that update when she first walked through the Foreman's door."

Donna smirked at Hyde. "Do you think Sam was so dense that she really didn't know that her first marriage invalidated the second?"

"Hard to say," Hyde replied. "That's the way she played it and maybe it was true. It was always hard to tell how deep her ditziness went." Hyde frowned at the memory of the last time he had seen his 'wife'.

_Flashback_

Sam waved happily at Hyde from the stage when she spotted him at the back of the bar. She made a 5 minute signal with her hand, proceeded to give a drunk fat old man a lap dance, and then strutted towards her husband, dollar bills hanging out of her G-string. Seeing her in action, Hyde wondered to himself what the hell he had been thinking the last few months. It was like his brain had taken a leave of absence.

"What's up, baby?" she asked.

_The expiration date on our marriage_, Hyde thought. What he said was "Sam, you and I need to talk."

"About what?"

"Look, Sam, the thing is, I don't think this marriage is really working out."

Sam gazed at him, not comprehending. "Not working? But I give you all the sex you want, right?"

"Well, yeah…"

"And I never nag you about where you go or who you're with. So what's wrong with our marriage? Any guy here would tell you you've got a pretty sweet deal."

Hyde looked around at the bleary-eyed occupants of the bar. Bud Hyde would have fit in nicely around here. "These aren't the kind of people I want to measure up to." He realised as he said the words how true they were, even though as little as 3 years ago he would have been content enough to call them his peers. He had the Foremans and Jackie to thank for that, them and their stubborn believing in him.

Sam narrowed her eyes at Hyde. "Oh what, so suddenly I'm not good enough for you? Hey, I'm from Vegas, honey. I've seen more of the world than your small-town ass ever will!"

"Sam, I never said you weren't good enough – "

"Besides, you and I both know I am the perfect kind of girl for the kind of guy you are." Sam gave her best seductress smile and smoothed her hand over Hyde's bicep, her voice purring in his ear. When his face remained impassive, she elaborated on her reasoning. "You're the kind of guy who likes to sleep in the same room as his beer fridge. The kind of guy who opens his store depending on when he's over last night's hangover. The kind of guy who chooses his woman depending on whoever is around the most and takes the least effort to hold onto. You are a man of convenience, Hyde, and I am a real convenient kind of girl."

Hyde picked Sam's encroaching hand off of him as though it were contaminated and set it away from him. "Sam, I'm not saying there's no truth in all that. All I'm saying is I want to be with a girl who wants more from me than the bottom of my barrel."

Sam looked into his granite blue eyes and knew she had lost the game. But no-one said she had to be a gracious loser. "Oh, and I suppose your little cheerleader princess is so perfect?"

"Perfect, hardly," Hyde acknowledged. "But perfect for me – yes."

Sam rolled her eyes. "Men! I will never understand them. My other husband would have been over the moon to have me look after him like I have you, and you don't even give me as much money as he does!"

"Wait a second – other husband? You've been married before?"

"Well, yeah," Sam replied in a 'duh' kind of voice. "I'm from Vegas, Hyde. Getting married is something people do on a slow Monday. Plus Larry's pretty generous, even if he is a bit old for me. You didn't think I paid for that Trans Am with the chicken feed I make in these joints?"

Hyde felt like he had been transplanted into some crazy alternate universe; Sam kept talking but the words made no sense. Could he really have married someone, lived with them for months and still have no idea who they were?

"So when did you get divorced?" he interrupted her annoying monologue.

"Divorced?" Sam gave him her best dumb blonde look, the one that used to turn him on but now just made him want to wring her neck.

"You know – ending your first marriage before you sink your fangs into the next victim?"

"Oh, I've been much too busy working on my act to waste time and money on lawyers," Sam replied. "You know, I think if I could empty a bucket of water over myself during the third song change I could really nail it."

Hyde held up one hand while the other massaged his forehead as though in pain. "So what you're saying is you were still some old guy's wife when we got married?"

"Well, technically," Sam admitted. "But Hyde, it's not like it was a real marriage. I only married Larry for his money. Plus, he is _really _old."

"Hate to tell you this, Sam, but just because you marry someone with the wrong motives doesn't mean the marriage isn't legal. If that were true, then our marriage would be a fake from my side of the fence as well." Suddenly Hyde stood up from the table, so disgusted with this woman and himself that he couldn't stand to be around her any longer. "But thanks for making this so much easier on me, Sam. I was feeling guilty when I walked in here because I thought I'd taken advantage of you, letting you believe we had a future together. Now I find out that I'm the one who was manipulated and lied to. You were just using me for a meal ticket, weren't you, not giving a damn how many lives you were messing up along the way."

Sam waved her hand in front of his face. "Hello! I'm from _Vegas_. When are you going to _get _that?"

"Let me know where you want your things sent," Hyde said, turning around to walk away. Sam's face fell as she realised she had lost her lover and her lodgings in one hit. She made one last desperate attempt to reverse his decision, using her most tried and true weapon – her sexuality.

"Please baby, give me one more chance," she cried, pressing her mostly naked body against his front. "I'm so sorry about Larry – I promise I'll divorce him and we can get married for real." Hyde grasped her by the wrists and pulled her off him. "Please, Steven," she sobbed, large crocodile tears falling down her painted face," I love – "

"Don't use that word," Hyde said sharply.

"But it's true, I really do love you."

"Not that one," he said, pushing her away. "Why would I care about you using that word? Love is like the multiplication table to you – beyond your comprehension. I meant the other word."

Sam creased her forehead in bewilderment. "You mean – Steven?"

Hyde nodded, his eyes flashing coldly behind the shades he had whipped on. "Only one girl I know has the right to use that word. And you sure as hell aren't her."

………………………………………

"Look, Donna," Hyde said seriously, returning from his memories, "my life has been shaken about like a polaroid picture lately. I need to take things slowly for a while. When Jackie comes back – even if it's not til the end of the summer – I should be ready by then to make things up to her. But until then, there's no need to be breaking down doors trying to get to her. Hell, the other time when I let her down and she took the summer off to punish me and get a tan, she came back to me in the end. That's the way we are – we try to stay away from each other but it never works for long."

"Hyde," Donna sighed, sitting down next to him, "I'm just worried that this time will be different. Jackie has never acted this distant before, and I'm not talking geography. It feels like she's left a lot more behind than just yourself."

"Not to mention that Alex person she has befriended," Fez reminded. "I can just see him now – he is probably a bronzed Californian god, with washboard abs that glisten in the hot sun." Fez did not notice the strange looks his three friends shot his way as a dreamy smile shaped his lips.

"Mrs Forman said Alex was just a friend to Jackie, that they were kids together," Hyde said, shaking his head against the likelihood of competition.

"Have you forgotten how you two hooked up?" Donna asked incredulously. "When her boyfriend abandoned her and she turned to an old friend for comfort and something more?"

"That was different," Hyde frowned. "It may have seemed like it came out of nowhere to you self-involved morons, so wrapped up in your own love lives that you don't see what's right in front of your noses. Trust me when I say Jackie and me getting together was a long process, many years in the making. So I really don't think Jackie is going to be leaping into some stranger's arms in the course of a couple of months. She's not built that way."

"Who's not built what way?" Kelso asked as he clattered down the wooden basement steps. "Have you guys built a robot?"

"Kelso! You're back," Fez squealed, throwing himself into Kelso's arms.

"We were just talking about Jackie," Donna said.

"You're building a Jackie robot?" Kelso cried, eyes lighting up. "Awesome! I call dibs on dressing it – I lifted a bunny outfit from the Mansion. One question though – will it come with a mute button ? 'Cause _that _would really be a fantasy come to life."

"Shut up, doofus," Hyde said, slugging Kelso hard in the forearm. "What are you doing here?"

"I have returned," Kelso announced proudly. "Yeah, spending time with Brooke and Betsy in Chicago made me fall for her all over again. She said she'd take me back if I resigned from that Playboy gig and moved back to Point Place with her."

"Why did she want to move back? I thought she had family in Chicago," Donna questioned.

"Yeah, well, her apartment got broken into one night and it freaked her out. Said she'd feel safer in a small town."

"Oh my God, that's terrible! What did they take?"

Kelso went all eye avoidance. "Oh, just some fire crackers and leftover chocolate pudding."

Donna grabbed his chin and made him look her in the eye. "Kelso? You broke into Brooke's apartment, didn't you?"

"I admit nothing!" Kelso said in a high voice. "Besides, I've eaten half the evidence so you can't prove anything."

"You're unbelievable, man," Hyde said.

"Hey, it all worked out for the best. This way we could both come home – we've both missed this crazy little town."

"So you're back for good?" Fez cried in delight. "Oh Kelso, you are a ray of light in an otherwise gloomy Jackie-less existence."

"What, Jackie's gone?"

"Yes, she's been in California all summer," Donna supplied.

"On vacation," Hyde added quickly. "She'll be back soon."

"Oh, that explains why she was on the phone with Red and Mrs Foreman," Kelso said as he reached into the freezer for a popsicle. "I thought it was weird her calling them instead of just coming over."

Hyde stood up immediately. "Jackie's on the phone?" Hyde bolted for the stairs in a very un-Hyde-like hurry, his friends not far behind. But he was too late – Mr Foreman had just hung up the phone when he burst into the kitchen.

"Red, you spoke to Jackie? Why didn't you come and get me? You know I've been waiting for her to call me back."

Red turned a grim face in Hyde's direction, his forehead creased in parallel lines of extreme disgruntlement. "Because, dumbass, she wasn't calling for you."

"What? But that's not possible. I just called her last night and told her to ring me back!"

"Steven," Kitty said in her most sympathetic voice, the one she brought out when she was trying to soften the blow. "Jackie only called to let Red and I know that… oh dear, perhaps you should have a beer before I break the news."

"Don't coddle the moron, Kitty," Red barked. "After all, this is the end result he's obviously been working towards ever since he told that slutty blonde airhead she could stay. Congratulations, Steven, you've finally driven Jackie away for good."

"Mr Foreman, what are you saying?" Donna cried.

"I'm saying Jackie isn't coming home." Red stared Hyde down, his expression leaving no doubt where he was placing the blame. "She just called to say she's going to stay in California."

"She's not coming back," Hyde whispered as his world shattered to pieces. He sank lifelessly onto a chair, utterly dejected. Donna and Fez soon joined him, stunned at the thought of never seeing their friend again.

"Man, I'm sorry," Kelso commiserated, placing a comforting hand on Hyde's shoulder. "But hey – look on the bright side; at least you've still got the Jackie robot."


	9. Confrontation

**A.N. Thanks so much for all the reviews for the last chapter. Even though this one is slightly shorter than usual, I hope you will find it worthy of comment. Enjoy!**

"Here we have it," Alex said. "The moment of truth."

Jackie drew in a deep breath as she slid her college application through the mailbox slot.

"And another eager student is added to the Berkely fall intake," Alex announced cheerfully.

"I hope so," Jackie replied. "Let's hope they find small town high school credentials impressive."

"Don't worry about it, you're a shoe in."

"You're right. After all, if they took you, they'll take anybody."

"Hardy har." Alex wrapped an arm around Jackie and kissed her cheek. "I've gotta say, it is so cool that you're settling down here, Jackie. I didn't dare to hope that our summer romance would switch to a permanent footing; I thought you were all set on getting back home."

"This is my home now," Jackie said, looking around at the Malibu beach-scape. "After all, home is where your family and friends are, right? And that is more true here than it is in Point Place." Alex raised his eyebrows at this statement but did not press for more info. He knew from experience Jackie did not like talking about her home town. He could see the pain spark in her eyes whenever the subject came up. He was more at home in the light than the darkness so was happy to respect this boundary.

"So what courses are you thinking of taking?" he asked, changing the subject back.

"Architecture," Jackie said promptly. "I want to learn everything there is to know about building a house, from blueprints to bricklaying."

"Keeping it in the family, eh? Me, I'm thinking of medicine. Or political science. Or maybe philosophy."

"Nice to see you've narrowed it down," Jackie remarked as they entered George's building site.

"He can't help it," Shelley said, overhearing their exchange as she passed by. "Alex has always had a hard time working out what he really likes." Jackie was surprised by the sudden tension between her two friends. It was obvious Shelley was not speaking without experience.

"Don't start, Shell," Alex said warningly. "That was a long time ago." Shelley shrugged casually, but Jackie spied a flash of resentment in her eyes before she turned and walked away.

"What's all that about?" she asked her boyfriend.

"Just a short girl with a long memory," Alex said cryptically. "So, you want to take a quick dip before we get to work on the south wall?"

"Definitely," Jackie replied buoyantly. "I have to go change into my bikini. Meet you on the beach, Danny?"

"You and your Grease obsession," Alex laughed.

"Can you blame me? I feel like I'm living in the opening scene!"

"Fine. Just so long as we can get friendly down in the sand."

Jackie pointed a warning finger at Alex. "Watch it, buddy. You are _not_ all that cute as can be."

Alex planted a lingering kiss on her lips before lightly tapping her behind. "Sure I am." He then turned towards the beach, whistling "Grease Lightning".

Meanwhile, from high up on the roof, a pair of blue eyes was following every movement of the carefree brunette. As he watched her kiss a handsome stranger, his hand tightened around the hammer he was working with, just before bringing it down with bruising force on a nail.

"Hey, new guy," Rick called from where he was straddling a neighbouring beam. "Go easy on the hardware, dude. What did that tool ever do to you?"

"Fucking kissed my girl," the new guy muttered.

"What was that?"

"I said, whatever!"

………………………………………

"Hey, George," Jackie greeted as she entered their sanctum. "I'm just going to hit the beach first but I'll be back in half an hour to make you some lunch." She pointed an accusing finger at him. "And this time you are going to eat every bite – no slipping scraps to Guster when you think I'm not looking."

"Remind me again – who is the parent here?," George asked sarcastically, putting down the guitar he had been tuning.

"Put some flesh on those bones and then we'll talk," Jackie said, rummaging through her drawer for her swimsuit. "That reminds me, we really should finish the kitchen in the new house before any other room – I'm tired of cooking in the same room I sleep in. I think there has to be a door between where you cook and where you sleep. Even in the bush - tribal people, you know, they have a place for both. Probably it's like a law. God! It's probably in the Bible. It's at least a building code violation."

"By the way," George cut into Jackie's ramble. "I have to thank you for your latest recruit. I know I said last night that we could really use some kind of pick-up truck for carting building supplies, but I didn't think you'd rope in another lovestruck volunteer so soon. Also this one has some muscle on him, so there's more to him than his El Camino."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Jackie said distractedly. "Have you seen my yellow bikini? It has to be here some – " Jackie froze mid-sentence as her father's words registered. She slowly turned to face him. "Did you say… El Camino?"

"Sure. Big black one. Why? Is there a problem? He said he was a friend of yours."

"I only know one person who drives an El Camino," Jackie said, her mouth turning dry. "And he is about as far away from a friend as you can get."

Before her father could ask for more elaboration, Jackie was out of there. She sprinted to the vacant lot where the building crew parked their cars, praying under her breath that her suspicions were false.

But then she saw his car, unmistakably Steven's. It had the same dent in the rear fender that Fez had put there when he backed the car into the garage in his first driving lesson. It had the same rock band stickers on the rear windshield. And it had the same rolled up foam mattress strapped into a corner of the flatbed that Steven used to unfurl when he would take her up to the reservoir and they would lay down together under the stars. It was true. Steven was here.

The thought sent gooseflesh rippling over her skin.

"Jackie," said a voice behind her. A voice that a long time ago had shyly whispered endearments into her ear, but in recent times had expressed itself with well-aimed burns. She closed her eyes tightly and willed herself to be strong. Then she turned around.

"What are you doing here?" Her eyes held no warmth, her tone was hostile. Hyde took a step towards this girl who used to throw herself into his arms whenever they were reunited, but who now stepped back, body fully tensed. His hopes, which had already taken a bruising when he saw Jackie kiss another guy, fell even lower as he registered these signs. This was not the same girl who had vowed he was the most important thing in the world to her; this girl wanted nothing to do with him.

"I – Red said I had to bring you your stuff from back home," Hyde said, reverting to his zen defence. "Said you asked him to send it to you." He didn't say that Red had followed that instruction with the words _You broke it, you fix it_, shoved him out the door, and locked it after him. Not that he needed the extra push; the panic he had felt at the thought that he would never again see the girl who was currently glaring at him had railroaded through all his cautious arguments, making him speed across country as though the devil were chasing him.

"I meant he should send it by freight or courier," Jackie said, eyebrows crossed. "I didn't expect one of the gang to drive all the way across country to bring me my things. I'm not _that _self-centred." Hyde gave her a speaking look. "And even if I were," Jackie continued hurriedly, "You are the last person I would have expected to volunteer for the assignment."

"I guess I'm just full of surprises," Hyde replied.

"Yes, I remember your last surprise," Jackie said with a shudder. "Every fake-breasted inch of her."

"Like you can talk," Hyde bit out, his jealousy overriding all his good intentions as usual. "Just a tip, next time you want to let some beach bum pretty boy maul you, try not to do it in public – kids ride their bikes past this street."

Jackie hissed her breath in sharply. "I'm so sorry, I didn't realise a man who had no objection to his wife taking her clothes off in public for money would object to his very much _ex _girlfriend kissing a boy."

"Well, I guess I'm just sensitive that way," Hyde snarled.

"Here's a suggestion – why don't you climb back into your stupid redneck truck and drive your sensitive ass back home so it wont get all offended again."

"She wasn't my wife," Hyde said abruptly. He winced internally; he had planned to lead into that fact more subtly. When Jackie said nothing, Hyde continued. "Sam – she wasn't my wife. She was already married so our wedding wasn't legal."

"I know." Jackie stunned Hyde, not only with her answer but the lack of expression in her face.

"Wait a minute – you knew?"

"Sure. Mrs Forman told me the day you found out."

"But if you knew, why didn't you…"

"Why didn't I what, Hyde? Come running back home to you? Is that what you were expecting?"

"…No." Even to his own ears, it did not sound convincing.

"Do you really think it matters that she wasn't legally your wife? That's like thinking a burglar who gets his charges dropped because the police messed up his arrest wasn't really guilty. You got off on a technicality, Hyde. You aren't innocent, you're just lucky."

"You're missing the point," Hyde growled, irritated by Jackie's use of his surname.

"What is the point?" Jackie asked, arms crossed over her chest.

"The point is… the point is that I – I am a victim," Hyde scrambled, trying to muster some kind of defence. "I got played by some Sin City tramp who probably saw me coming a mile away – after you broke my heart, I was easy pickings."

Jackie shook her head, confused by his logic. "So what you're saying is this is all Sam's fault for tricking you? Or is it all my fault for breaking your heart? I'm just trying to work out to what extent you are completely blameless in this whole scenario."

"Look, all I'm trying to say is that mistakes were made on all sides. I'm not proud of the things I did… or said," Hyde's eyes flickered downwards in shame. "Jacks, I just wanted to stand before you and tell you that I'm sorry." He had gradually been inching forward as they argued, so now she was within arm's reach, his car blocking her retreat. He continued in a softer voice, "I truly am sorry, Jackie." She did not respond but stared at the ground, her jawline unyielding. Only when he reached out to touch her did she look into his repentant eyes and give a brief nod, sidestepping away.

"So, that's covered then. I've heard your apology. Thanks for delivering my clothes and things - guess you'll be heading back now. Do you need me to chip in for gas money?"

Hyde stared into her face. Although her eyes roiled with some turbulent emotion, she was keeping herself well in check, not giving an inch.

"That's it?" He was incredulous. "I drive over 6 statelines for that? Don't you have anything else to say to me."

"You're right, there is one more thing I should say." Jackie's shoulder brushed his as she walked away, throwing one last comment over her shoulder.

"Have a nice trip."


	10. Nothing

Chapter 10

Jackie's zen face held up well as she walked away from Hyde. But as soon as she stepped into the garage her control slipped and tears filled her eyes. Shaking with shock, she lay down on the couch and hugged a cushion tightly against her stomach, as though physically trying to hold herself together. When George found her this way, panic hit him like a falling piano.

"Jackie, what's wrong? Are you hurt?" He tested her forehead with the back of his hand, running worried eyes over her body, looking for injury.

"He's back," Jackie whispered, her eyes huge and tragic in her three-cornered face.

"Who is? Jackie, did somebody hurt you? Please, sweetheart, tell me what's wrong and I promise I'll fix it for you."

A gleam of hope shot into Jackie's eyes and she sat up, grasping George's hand tightly.

"You have to make him go away," she pleaded. "Please, Dad!"

"Who?" he asked again.

"Steven."

"Steven? You mean Steven Hyde, the kid I just hired? I know you said he was no friend of yours, but what's so bad about him that has sent you into a melt-down?"

"He is the main reason I left Point Place," Jackie said, wiping tears away with the heel of her hand. With very little prompting, the whole sorry tale poured out of his distressed daughter – their secret affair, their public affair, the nurse, the first break-up, the second break-up...

"...so then I got this fantastic job offer in Chicago and I had to choose between a great career or love," Jackie explained tearfully. "It wasn't really a hard choice – I was all in favour of choosing love but I just needed him to let me know he was serious about me, that I wasn't giving up my dream job for nothing."

"And he said no?" George guessed.

Jackie shook her head. "First he got stinking drunk when he should have been asking me to stay. Then when I figured it was pointless to stick around and wait for his rejection I went to Chicago but he followed me and walked in on me and my ex-boyfriend in a hotel room. He took one look at us, made some very insulting and totally wrong assumptions and then ran away."

"What assumptions?"

"OK, fine, so Michael was wearing a towel and talking about him and me 'doing it'," Jackie admitted, throwing her hands in the air. George raised his eyebrows in disbelief. "There was a context, damn it!"

"What context?"

"That Michael Kelso is a sex-obsessed moron who can't keep his pants on."

George drew in a deep breath. "Great – now there's two young men out there I have to punch in the face."

Jackie gave a half-smile. "You're too late for Michael. Steven already did that."

"Did he? You know, considering he punched your other boyfriend in the face, and has not only followed you to Chicago but also to California, I've got to conclude that he must still have feelings for you."

"No." Jackie's shook her head. "I haven't even told you the worst part yet."

"It gets worse?" George asked incredulously.

"When he ran out of that hotel room, he drove all the way to Vegas and went on a month long bender. Then when he came home I was waiting for him - I had given up my new job because I just missed him so much, I thought somehow we would work things out. And for a moment there I thought it was going to happen – we were just having our first conversation without yelling at each other when this... this... _woman_ walked in and announced she was Steven's wife. His _wife_! Not only that, but she was a Vegas stripper." Jackie's breathing turned choppy as that memory replayed in her head. "I had spent two years of my life turning myself into someone he would want to marry one day, and then he chooses a vile naked hussy he had just met instead."

George hugged Jackie as her words heated his blood with rage. How dare some low-life punk treat his little girl that way! "God, Jackie, I'm so sorry – "

"Wait," Jackie held up a hand. "It gets worse."

"I'm afraid to ask – how could it possibly get any worse than that?"

"Because I could have forgiven him for marrying Sam. It happened when he was drunk and I know he does really stupid, destructive things when he gets drunk so I could have got past that. But he chose to stay with her. After telling me he wasn't ready to be married, he chose to stay married to a floozy he didn't even remember marrying! And then..." Jackie's eyes took on that haunted expression George had seen when she first stepped off the plane, the expression that made him want to take apart the person responsible for it with his bare hands. "...then it was like he had never loved me at all. He went back to the way he used to be before we got together, always putting me down, making cutting remarks. Except it never used to bother me when I was with Michael because back then I'd think, he's only judging on appearances, he doesn't really know me or he wouldn't think I was a stuck-up airhead." Jackie's voice started to shake. "But when you've been together with someone for so long and... and you've let them see who you really are, then when they treat you l-like you're w-worthless..."

It was a while before Jackie could say anything after that. George rocked her gently until the sobs tearing through her body quieted to a gentle weeping. Jackie hugged him back gratefully, feeling immeasurably comforted to have the sympathy of somebody who was completely in her corner.

"Please Dad," she finally said, "please make him go away." George looked into her red eyes and was disturbed, not as much by the sadness but the fear he saw in them.

"What are you afraid of, Jackie?" he asked gently.

"I'm afraid he'll make me into nothing again," Jackie whispered. "That's what he did in Point Place. It was like everybody saw me as worth less than a stripper. _I _saw myself as less than her. And it hurt so much that I did whatever I could to make the hurt go away. I started to like how it feels... not to feel."

George nodded. "I know the feeling."

"I haven't used anything like that in over a month. I don't even smoke pot anymore. But if he is here, making all my friends, making _you_, see me through his eyes... I don't know what I would do. I'm scared of what I might do."

"Alright," her father said, standing up. "I'll take care of this."

George strode across to the half-finished house, looking for the bastard who had crushed his daughter's heart. But there were no heart-crushing bastards in sight.

"Jamie," he yelled up to the roof. "Have you seen the new guy about?"

"Last I saw of him he was over by his truck," Jamie yelled back. "Is he leaving already?"

"Not yet," George muttered, changing course for the parking lot. "Not before he hears what I have to say, that stripper-marrying punk!"

When George stood in front of the El Camino, Hyde was sitting on the flatbed, shoulders slumped, too dejected to lift his head. It barely registered with him when Jackie's uncle stood fuming before him. But then he said Hyde's name with a voice like a whip crack and Hyde could not help noticing how very different this angry man was to the easy-going person who had hired him this morning.

"What the hell are you doing here?" George demanded.

Hyde blinked. "Uh... I'm on a break?"

"Don't play cute with me, punk! I know who you are. Now you tell me right now what the fuck you are doing here in California before I throw you over that cliff and leave you for the fish to eat."

Hyde started to feel a sweat build. This guy could give Red tips on how to make a young man shake in his boots.

"I... I came f-for Jackie," he stuttered.

"Why?" George snarled, getting up into Hyde's face. "So you can hurt her again? Did you run out of innocent girls to torment in Wisconsin?"

Hyde leaned away from the crazy man who was glaring at him with his mismatched eyes that seemed very familiar to him somehow.

"No, of course not! I just wanted to see her so I could... I mean, I needed to make sure she was doing OK and tell her..."

"Tell her what?" George barked, unnerving Hyde even more.

"That I'm sorry," the miserable boy blurted. "That I was an idiot and I miss her like crazy and I'd do anything if she would just come back home with me."

Silence hung in the air. It would be hard to say who was more surprised by Hyde's confession.

"And did you?" George asked.

"I tried." Hyde's shoulders slumped down an extra notch. "Before I could get past the apology she pretty much told me to shove it and walked off."

"I see." George frowned in concentration as he looked over the sorry excuse in front of him. Funny thing was, he had taken an instant liking to this kid when he had hired him; there was something about the way he seemed to step back and watch the world go by with mocking but tolerant eyes that reminded George of how he used to be. Then from the eager way he had asked after Jackie which he had tried to hide with a veneer of coolness, it had never occurred to him that this Steven Hyde was actually a black-hearted villain who delighted in the torture of helpless females. Even now, taking in his depressed response to Jackie's rejection, that description still seemed kind of... off.

"So, what now?" George asked in a more reasonable tone. "Are you heading back to Point Place?"

"Are you firing me?" Hyde answered with a question. Then he sighed. "Of course you are. I'm sure Jackie's given you a play by play." He pushed himself off the flatbed and walked around to open the car door. Then he turned to ask another question. "Can you tell me if that beach down there is public land?"

"Yeah. Why?"

"Just wanted to make sure so I don't get hassled by the cops or the rich people's hired security thugs."

"You mean to say you're going to live on the beach?" George asked in surprise.

"I've got my camping gear with me. It's like I said; I've only told Jackie one part of what I came here to tell her." Hyde's blue eyes were pure determination. "I'm not leaving until she gets the whole message."

"Yes, I think she needs to get that message." George surveyed Hyde thoughtfully. As he remembered Jackie's fearful face, he came to a decision. "Break's over. Get to work on the south wall – I want to see 3 lines of brick before sundown."

"You're serious? You still want me to work for you?" Hyde was stunned.

"The question is if you're still going to want to work for me before the day is done," George gave a sinister smile. "You ever worked for a guy after you'd hurt someone he loved?" Hyde's eyes widened at the implication. "That's right, buddy. Welcome to Georgetown - you're in _my_ world now. Let's see how long it takes before you go running back to Pointless Place with your tail between your legs."

Hyde bit back the smartass comment he had lined up and said instead, "I guess I'd better get started on that south wall."

"You do that." Once Hyde was out of sight, all the badass leaked out of George's body at the thought of the obvious consequence of his decision. How the hell was he going to explain this to Jackie?

………………………………………

"OK, what's going on?" Alex said, walking into the garage in board shorts with a towel slung over his shoulder. "I waited on the beach for you for like an hour!" Then he saw the traces of tears on Jackie's face and was instantly concerned. "Jackie, what's wrong?"

"Oh, Alex," Jackie cried, rushing into his arms.

"Hey now," Alex soothed, kissing her hair as she clung to him.

"Alex, you don't think I'm nothing, do you?"

"What, are you kidding? Any girl who can mitre a corner to a perfect 90 degrees is something special, I can tell you!"

Jackie drew her head back to look up at the handsome boy. "You're not going to change your mind about that, are you?"

"Of course not. Jackie, what's going on?"

"Nothing. It doesn't matter anyway, my fa – uncle is taking care of it." Jackie smiled a little too brightly. "Everything is fine."

"That's what I like to hear," Alex replied with a smile, kissing Jackie lightly on the lips. "Now go and change into that hot little bikini of yours – I figure we can still squeeze in a quick dip before we start on the south wall."

**A.N. As you can guess, there is more drama around the corner (no surprise, this whole story is an angst-fest). It's moving slowly but I'm in no hurry. How about you?**


	11. Collapse

**A.N. Hey, I'm back! Sorry to be late with the update but I've been working hard, both in real life and fanfic life. Please review!**

Chapter 11

_I'm going to kill him , _was the thought that repeated in a loop through Jackie's head as she went in search of her accidental father. She concentrated on the anger, immersed herself in the feeling, so as to block out that oh so familiar sense of betrayal that was peeking out from underneath.

She had been feeling pretty good after that swim with Alex. The sun was bright, the water was clear and she had no doubt Steven Hyde was currently leadfooting it back to Wisconsin at the moment she was towelling herself off. Alex had only just succeeded in coaxing some honest laughter out of her as they climbed to the top of the cliff path when she had spied her evil ex pushing a wheelbarrow full of cement through the construction works. He was going about his work as though he had been in the construction game since he was a nipper, the Californian sun already starting to bronze his pale Wisconsin skin the wifebeater he wore exposed to it. At once Jackie charged across to confront this insolent jerk who had defied her father by continuing to work on his property when he had been ordered off.

"What are you doing," she hissed at him, angry as hell but not wanting to attract attention. She was in no hurry to give explanations about who this man was and what he meant to her.

Hyde took a moment to appreciate the sight of Jackie in a wet bikini, cheeks flushed and eyes blazing, before answering. "It's called laying bricks, princess. It's real easy – you just put one brick on top of the other with a little bit of sand and cement in between."

"I know perfectly well how to – damn it, Steven, why are you still here? Didn't you talk to George?"

"Sure did. Nice guy, your uncle. Bit of a hardass, especially when it comes to you, but still I've got a good feeling about him. I think he'll make an OK boss."

Jackie blinked. "You mean – he didn't fire you?"

"Nope," Hyde said. "I'm here for the duration."

"But he promised – I don't believe this. I don't believe you. What do you expect to gain by working here? Do you think if you hang around long enough I'm just going to magically forget about all the crap you put me through?"

"Maybe," Hyde replied, carefully smoothing the mortar over the brick. "Maybe I'll get lucky and one day that pot of anger you have set on the boil will get pushed to the back-burner. Maybe you'll remember that there was a whole lot of good stuff that came before all the crap, stuff that you shouldn't be so quick to throw away." Then he looked up from his work and smirked at her, but it was more sexy than smartass. "Or maybe I just like the uniform code for the female workers. I've gotta say, if a bikini is the standard outfit for the female workers here, God bless Californian trade unions."

If looks could kill Hyde would be char-broiled from the fire in Jackie's eyes. "Don't go punching in your time card yet, _Hyde_. I'm going to find my uncle and then we'll see who is working for who." She was about to turn and storm off when she added "and make sure you use the half-inch dowelling to space those bricks, and go easy on the sand. Amateur!" she scoffed. She did not look back at him again as she strode towards the garage, not even when he called after her

"Whatever you say, Miss Burkhart. I'm _really _looking forward to working under you."

Alex, who had been standing back while Jackie tore into the curly-haired stranger, now approached Hyde. Alex was no fool and he knew that while Hyde was a stranger to him, he was certainly well known to Jackie. He also knew there were some powerful issues between these two young people, issues so intense that they could endanger his tentative claim on the small brunette. All of these thoughts were going through his mind as he said, "So, you two know each other." It was a statement, not a question.

"Jackie and me? We go way back," Hyde replied, straightening to his full height as he took in Jackie's new love interest. He was a little chagrined to find that Alex still stood half a foot taller than him. And what was it with people walking around in swimming costumes around here? Hyde was not the kind of guy who checked other guys out but that thing Fez had said about glistening washboard abs couldn't help flit through his thoughts as he took in Alex's bare chest. _Looks like Jackie found a new Kelso_.

"Did you date?" Alex asked bluntly, going right to the point, his grey-blue eyes uncharacteristically serious. But Hyde wasn't going to be interrogated by this pretty-faced usurper.

"I don't see how that's any of your business."

"Jackie is my girlfriend. That makes it my business." Alex knew he was overstepping slightly here – a good friendship and some hot kissing sessions don't make an exclusive relationship. But he didn't need some badass Midwesterner walking in and undoing all the groundwork he had laid with the bewitching brunette. After all, it was only a matter of time before Jackie officially was his girlfriend.

Hyde clenched his fist when Alex dared to call Jackie his girlfriend but he kept his temper reigned in. He would not be working here for too long if he started fights with his co-workers. Although the temptation to mess up that too-perfect face was almost irresistible. He would have to settle for taunting instead.

"I think if Jackie was really your girlfriend then she would have trusted you enough to tell you exactly who I am," Hyde said coolly. "Maybe you two aren't as close as you think."

Alex was about to make some angry rebuttal when he was interrupted by Jackie's panicked cry.

"Steven! Alex!" she screamed. "Come quick!"

The two young men sprinted to the garage at top speed. And although Hyde was concerned for what was behind the urgency in Jackie's cry, he still took fierce pleasure in the fact that Jackie had called his name first.

………………………………………

Jackie pushed open the garage door with explosive force and yelled "What the hell were you thinking, George! George?" She looked around the spacious room to find no trace of her backstabbing father. "You can run but you can't hide," she muttered as she walked around to the other side of the bed. What she found there made her heart start thumping like a jackhammer as she took in the sight of George Burkhart collapsed on the floor while Guster plaintively licked his face.

"Dad," she exclaimed, dropping to her knees. She felt his heated forehead, dripping with sweat, and noticed the lines of pain on his face. "Dad, are you alright?"

"Stop… licking me," he muttered.

Jackie ran to the door and hollered for Hyde and Alex. Soon they were carefully lifting George back onto his bed.

"George, what happened?" Jackie asked anxiously as she set a glass of water to his lips.

"It's just my damn back again," George lied as he swallowed the liquid. "Just gave out on me all of a sudden." In fact, he had been resting from a sudden cancerous pain attack when he had misjudged his strength and tried to get up. That was when he had collapsed to the floor, where he had lain helpless for the last half hour while his dog tried to revive him with its tongue.

Hyde looked on, his eyes taking in a number of new developments from behind his shades. Like the tenderness Jackie showed to her mysterious uncle. He remembered how she had once confided in one of their intimate moments how hurt she had been by this man who had dropped all contact with her over the past 10 years. It looked as though all had been forgiven, judging from the warm concern in her face and the loving smile on George's lips as he bore her scolding for scaring her like that. In fact, the way George looked at Jackie was kind of like the way Bob would look at Donna – like he was wrapped around her finger and he couldn't think of a better place to be.

"Steven," Jackie interrupted his musings. "Could you get the pills for George's back pain from out of the medicine cabinet? They're the ones in the blue bottle."

"Sure," Hyde obeyed, following the direction of Jackie's finger.

"Thanks," she said distractedly. "Alex, help me make him more comfortable. Do you think we should take him to the hospital?"

"No," George said forcefully. "I'm not ready for the hospital yet." As Alex propped him up on the pillow, George suddenly met Hyde's eyes, now unhidden by his glasses so he could read the writing on the bottles. There was a speculative look there, as though he had picked up on George's use of the word 'yet'. He was also looking at the labels on those bottles with a creased forehead, as if all those Latin medical words meant something to him. But how could they? What would a healthy young man like this know about cancer?

"Are these your pills?" he asked, like a cop asking a guilty-looking teen if this was his baggie.

"That's them," Jackie answered for George, snatching them from his hand. "Here, swallow these – they will make you feel better."

While Jackie pressed a cool cloth to his brow and Alex ran outside to fetch Robin to get a second opinion on calling a doctor, Hyde just stood at the foot of the bed and took in the scene with that assessing look of his that saw too much.

Suddenly George was having second thoughts about telling Hyde he could stay.

………………………………………

Robin had found a doctor willing to make house calls and he had strongly advised his patient to spend the next few days on bed rest. She had not left George's side since Alex told her of the collapse. It was the first time Jackie had seen the pond-like smoothness of her demeanour broken. As the afternoon wore on, Jackie had watched George and Robin with interest. It fascinated her how strong was the unspoken bond between these two people, yet at the same time it made her a little melancholy. She wished the bond did not have to be unspoken. She wished that they could show their love for each other in the non-crisis times.

As Jackie walked Robin to the front door, she impulsively said "You must have a really great husband."

"Why is that?" Robin asked, surprised.

"Just, I mean, well, you're here every single day. I guess I'd just be jealous if I were him." Jackie noticed irritation flit across Robin's face at her probing.

"Well, he doesn't need to worry." Robin looked back to where her ex-husband was sleeping off the painkillers, her concern for him again at the forefront. "Take care of your father, Jackie."

Jackie was thrown by Robin's assumption. "You know?" she gasped.

Her aunt smiled kindly at her. "Yes, George told me." She took Jackie's hand and squeezed it tightly. "Don't be mad at him, please. He is just so proud of you that he had to tell someone."

Jackie's eyes smarted and she replied huskily, "I don't mind you knowing, Robin. Sometimes it's a relief to call a relationship for what it is – don't you think?" The square look Jackie gave Robin as she said this had Robin quickly dropping her hand and making a hurried exit.

Later that night George was resting on the couch while Jackie heated up a can of chicken soup.

"Are you feeling better, Dad?" she asked solicitously.

"Much."

"Are you sure?"

"I'm fine, Jackie," the now-rested George replied.

"That's good," Jackie smiled. "Now WHAT THE HELL do you mean by telling Steven he can stay?"

"Ah yes," George looked rueful. "I had forgotten about that."

Jackie started to pace and gesticulate as wildly as Eric. "I pour out my heart to you, tell you how badly he hurt me, I trusted you to send him packing and then I turn around and find him laying freaking bricks! With your blessing! Is that your idea of running him off?"

"Jackie," George said seriously, "I hate the things that boy did to you. But more than that, I hate how strong an effect he has on you." George reached for her hand and pulled her down to sit beside him on the bed. "Those first few weeks you were here, you were like a ghost. It was like you were locked away in some prison in your mind that twisted everything around you, so you thought everyone was against you. But then, between building this house and the new friends you made, you started to come alive again. To believe in yourself again. But this morning, one meeting with Steven turns you back into a lost soul."

"That's why he has to go," Jackie insisted. "I don't want to go back to being a ghost. If Steven is here, he will ruin everything."

"Only if you let him, Jackie. Steven has as much power over you as you give him. You need to let him finish what he came here to do. Trust me, if you spend your life running away from the messes you've made, you'll never know peace. There will always be something out there that can bring the whole house of cards down." When Jackie looked mutinous, George added, "I truly don't believe Steven Hyde has it in for you. You don't drive across the country to see someone just to be spiteful."

"Ha! You're talking about the man that married another woman just to be spiteful! You don't know what lengths he will go to, George!"

"I know this," George said. "That if I had fired him, it wouldn't have solved anything. He was going to camp on the beach until he had the chance to talk things out with you."

"What?" Jackie cried. "No way. Steven wouldn't wait around for any girl."

"Trust me, I know a bluff when I see it; he meant it. I figured if I kept him on, then at least I could have some control over his actions." Jackie looked dolefully resigned to his reasoning. "Trust me, kid, I won't let him pull the kind of crap on you that he did back in Wisconsin. If he even tries it, I'll come down on him so hard I'll make Simon Legree look good."

Jackie was a little comforted by this prospect. "Promise?"

"Cross my heart." _Hope to die. Not._

As father and daughter hugged, George could almost feel his time with her ticking away with every heartbeat.

He needed more time. Time to fix the messes he had spent a lifetime running away from.

………………………………………

_Meanwhile, at the telephone booth on George's street…_

"Hi, Mrs Forman. Yeah, I made it, still all in one piece. So how's everything back home? Uh huh… Kelso did what? Yeah, if he did that, I'm not surprised Red finally delivered on the whole foot in the ass threat. Hey, how is that cancer patient at the hospital doing – you know, the one you're always talking about? What was that new medication you said he'd switched to?"


	12. Sparks

**A.N. Plenty of JH interaction in this chapter for you. Thanks again to Starfalls for all your wonderful reviews. They keep my fingers tapping.**

If Jackie hoped Hyde had succumbed to common sense and gone back to the land of cheese and sausage, she was disabused of the notion when the workers assembled at 8.00 am the next morning. There Hyde was, munching on one of the bacon and egg rolls that Jamie fried up on George's portable barbecue each morning. His sunglasses were in place, his face smoothed of expression, as he waited for his orders.

"Listen up, people, because I'm only saying this once," Jackie called out in her strident voice, standing up on an old packing crate. "George is laid up for the next couple of days so I'll be handing out the assignments."

"You're in charge?" Rick questioned. "Who ever heard of a female foreman?"

"For your information, where I come from I've known not one but two," Jackie said snottily. Hyde's mouth quirked up at Jackie's reference to Kitty and Laurie. He tried to catch her eye to share the joke, but she kept them pointed down at her clipboard. "OK, Jamie and Shelley, you're on cladding detail – Kurt will be coming by soon to give you a hand with the technical bits."

"Cool," Jamie said with a nod.

"Amber and Rick, the east wall is all yours."

"How generous," Amber replied.

"That leaves Alex and me to finish laying the floorboards in the dining room," Jackie said, putting away her roster. "Alright, guys, let's get to work and build this thing! Woohoo!"

"You can take the girl out of cheerleading…" Alex remarked indulgently.

"Uh, wait just a minute," Hyde interrupted. All eyes turned to look at him and he felt a little self-conscious at the scrutiny. "I think you left someone out."

"Oh, right, of course, the new guy," Jackie said, like someone remembering a minor detail. "Didn't know you'd be sticking around." She pulled the roster out again and started writing down his name. "Steven, wasn't it?"

Rolling his eyes, Hyde played along with her charade. "I prefer Hyde."

"Hyde, of course. How do you spell that? I mean, is it Hide as in cowardly, craven, runs away at the first sign of emotional conflict Hide?"

Now all eyes were definitely upon him. "It's spelled with a Y," he ground out.

"Oh, _Hyde_," she said, making a show of crossing out her first attempt and then jotting down the correction. "Like the monster." She tapped her pen thoughtfully against her chin, eyeing the new guy with puckered forehead; it was obvious to the meanest intellect she was having trouble choosing a task for the unpromising material before her. Then a light bulb went off. "Hyde, you're on clean-up." Jackie clapped her hands together twice. "OK, everyone to their places."

"Clean-up?" Hyde repeated in disgust as his co-workers walked off. "What kind of job is that?"

"Don't worry, Hyde, it's not too difficult," Jackie replied with a patronising smile. "All you have to do is pick up after everybody else."

"That's all, is it?"

"That and general assist. Handing someone a hammer, holding a board in position, pouring out the coffee. You know – unskilled labour."

Hyde had to hand it to Jackie, she was on fire this morning – and the fire was burning him royally. The only comeback he could think of was "I guess you'd know all about unskilled labour, Cheese Maiden."

Jackie smiled back sweetly. "I like my coffee white with one sugar, _Hyde_. Just for future reference." She then upped the wattage of her smile and pointed it at Alex. "Alex, darling, those floorboards are crying out to us."

He took her hand, turned her under his arm in a dancer's spin until they ended up with his arm draped over her shoulders. "Then let's not keep them waiting any longer, my sweet." With an infuriating smirk in Hyde's direction, Alex walked off with the girl.

Hyde groaned. This was going to be hell on earth, with his own personal black haired devil poking him with her pitchfork. He should just turn around and drive home. That's what he should do.

Instead, he picked up a broom and went to work.

………………………………………

Jackie woke up with the sunrise. She tried to find sleep again but after the events of the last few days, her brain was buzzing. Things were not going according to plan.

When George proved reluctant to give Hyde the boot, Jackie had decided to make his removal a solo mission. For the past three days, she had done her bitchy best to make his life unpleasant. Alex had been a willing partner in her objective; he was very much the Alpha male of this particular pack which meant that Rick and Jamie were quick to adopt his dismissive attitude towards the silent stranger. This left Hyde shut out from the good-natured camaraderie that the other young people shared. Nobody invited him to the nightly campfire gatherings. Nobody ever suggested to him that he should take a break and join them on the beach. True, Amber and Shelley had cast some lusty stares at the well-built new guy, but Jackie had been quick to squash their interest when she mentioned in passing that she wished his parole officer would quit phoning the house. When they asked with wide eyes what he had been sent to jail for, she had whispered that word is it had something to do with prostitution; whether he was arranging it or providing the service was unclear. Of course, it was not jealousy that made her tell lies to her friends that had them giving Hyde a very wide berth. It was all part of the plan to make Steven leave. So Jackie told herself.

Jackie sighed as she swung her legs off the bed. She had thought for sure that a single day of being everybody's dogsbody would have Hyde throwing away his broom and storming back home. But here it was three days later and he was still here. Giving into her restlessness, Jackie pulled on some jeans and whistled for Guster.

As she reached the bottom of the cliff path and stepped onto the beach, she was taken aback as always by the sheer magnificence of the ocean. Raised in a landlocked state, there was something about being on the very edge of the continent that she could never take for granted. The gentle repetition of the waves beating against the sand had a calming effect on her troubled mind, allowing her to think over the things George had said to her. Perhaps he was right; Steven could only make her life miserable if she let him. As it appeared that efforts to dislodge Hyde only made him more stubborn to stay, the only other defence she had was to not let anything he said or did penetrate her surface. She would not give him ownership of her happiness.

Of course, Hyde would choose that moment to sit down beside her.

Jackie's head whipped around. "What are you doing here?"

"I just came out to see who was on my doorstep." Hyde jerked a thumb over his shoulder. "My new home is just behind you." Jackie turned around and saw Red's old army tent pitched in the lee of the cliffside.

"You're really living on the beach?" she asked in surprise. She had not thought he was serious about that intention.

"Not too many hotels out here in this part of the 'burbs," Hyde shrugged. "Not that I'd waste my money on them anyway. What hotel is there that can offer me a better ocean view than this?"

"It is pretty amazing," Jackie agreed. _I can't believe this, _Jackie thought_. We're actually having a civil conversation! Maybe we _can_ coexist without being at each other's throats._ "I can't wait until we finish our house. Then I'll be waking up to this every morning."

"So it's true then. You're really going to stay here?" Jackie felt the beginnings of her temper rising at the accusatory note in Hyde's voice but she kept her answer neutral.

"Don't act like that's some big newsflash, Hyde. I told Red last week – this is my home now."

"Bullshit," Hyde said crudely. "This will never be your home, Jackie. You know as well as I do you belong in Point Place."

_So much for civility_.

"Point Place is not my home, it's my personal hell," Jackie stated, standing up and brushing the sand off her backside. "You should know, you were the head demon." A statement which startled Hyde, as he had been thinking something along those lines lately, except she had been the fiend in his scenario. Hell really was other people.

"That came out wrong," Hyde said, grabbing her hand. But she shook his touch off. "Come on, Jackie. I told you I was sorry."

"Oh, you're sorry? Well, that just makes up for everything!"

He never should have taught her sarcasm. She used it too well. As she stood there, her variegated eyes a mirror of the ocean's changing hues, she had never looked more beautiful to him. Or more unobtainable.

"Don't you even want to know why I came here?" Hyde asked. He expected her to blow him off again, but she surprised them both when she hesitated and then asked why. "I came for you," he said quietly.

Jackie shook her head sadly. "I waited for you to come for me for so long. Ever since you walked out of that hotel room in Chicago, I waited for you. But you never came. So I gave up waiting. I've moved on with my life now, Steven. I suggest you do the same."

"Yeah, I tried that," Hyde said, looking out to sea. "I've tried everything; another woman, beer, pot. I tried burning you so you'd stop coming around. And I didn't stick up for you when my wife and friends put you down, even though it took every bit of control I have to sit by and do nothing while you got hurt."

"Well, it seemed like those things were working out for you, back in Point Place," Jackie said dryly, moving the damp sand around with her toes. "I thought you'd gotten over me before the puke was dry on your wedding T-shirt."

"Yeah, it kind of works at first," Hyde replied. "Especially when you hold onto the anger; then you can fool yourself into believing that you're completely over someone. But it catches up with you in the end." Hyde picked up a smooth pebble and threw it into the water. "You'll find that out for yourself."

"Me?" Jackie scoffed. "What are you talking about?"

"C'mon, Jackie, you think I haven't seen what you've been up to these last three days? The burns, the new boyfriend, the way you've turned me into the town leper around here. I know payback when I see it."

"I see you're just as paranoid as ever."

"Then how come when I asked Amber for a ride into town yesterday she turned white as a sheet and left rubber burns on the driveway getting away from me? You trying to tell me that wasn't your doing?"

"Well, I guess you had to find out about your bad breath sometime."

Hyde chuckled and Jackie could not suppress a smile. She sat down next to him again.

"I know you've got a right to some payback," Hyde admitted, watching Jackie's face. "Maybe it will help you understand what I was feeling, why I did what I did."

"This isn't about you," Jackie insisted. "Not everything I do is a reaction to you."

"Then why does this all feel so familiar? The only thing you'd have to do to complete the pattern is escape into drugs." Jackie flinched at the reminder and Hyde knew he had hit a nerve. "Or have you? Before you left I wondered sometimes…"

"That's none of your business," Jackie snapped, hastily standing up and brushing herself free of sand. Hyde quickly followed, concern clear in his eyes.

"Jacks, if you have a problem – "

"The only problem I have is you," Jackie retorted. She wished he were wearing his sunglasses, then she wouldn't see the hurt in his eyes. It was so unfair that after all he had done to her she would still feel badly when she caused him pain. She drew a deep breath. "I did have some… issues… before I left but I've sorted through them since then. I'm not even into the 'film' anymore."

"Really? And you living in California? What a waste."

"You'd better not let George catch you lighting up," Jackie warned. "He's got a zero tolerance policy going on that score."

"Did you really just give me a heads up to keep me from getting kicked out?" Hyde asked with a knowing smirk. "So you do want me around!"

"Damn!" Jackie swore. "That was just a slip."

"A Freudian slip."

"Whatever," Jackie rolled her eyes. "Look, I have to get back and make George some breakfast."

"Right. How's he doing, by the way?"

"Much better. He'll be back on site today."

"So, what exactly is wrong with him?"

"Oh, it's just his back. It gives him problems every now and then," Jackie answered, as she clapped her hands to call Guster back to her side. "And he's as skinny as Eric. He's so excited about building this house I swear it's like he doesn't even think of food."

"So, nothing serious, then?" Hyde searched Jackie's expression but it was completely guileless.

"Of course not. Why? Were you hoping he'd be laid up longer? Are you scared of the big bad boss man?"

"Hardly," Hyde snorted. "I'm hoping he'll let me do more than picking up trash."

"Steven Hyde actually wants more work? This is a first."

Hyde looked up to the top of the cliff where the half-finished house was perched. "I just want to make a real contribution," he said. "I mean, it's pretty awesome, isn't it? Building a house. A place where a family like the Formans will grow up and make memories." Hyde shrugged self-consciously as he caught Jackie staring at him. "I guess that sounds kind of hokey to you."

"No, it's not that." Jackie gave Hyde one of her rare smiles. "Actually, I kind of like to think about stuff like that myself." Hyde returned the smile and for a moment they were of one accord. Then Hyde's fingers brushed against hers as they walked and she jumped away like she had been shocked.

"So, um, I'd better, um, I mean, we'll be starting soon and… bye!" Jackie ran up the cliff path, Guster at her heels while Hyde looked after her, remnants of the smile they had shared on his lips.

The spark was definitely still there.


	13. Conversations

Chapter 13

**A.N. I threw one of my favourite Buffy lines into this chapter. 10 points for the reader who spots it.**

"So, you're still here."

Hyde looked up from the door he was sanding to find his employer at his side. "In spite of all predictions, yes."

George looked over Hyde's work critically. "You're not using the orbital on that door?"

"I did for the flat part. I wanted to be more careful with the edges - give it the personal touch."

George nodded his head in agreement. "That's good. I like a man who doesn't always grab the shortcut but can take his time."

"Yeah, I've got nothing but time," Hyde said wryly, his eyes straying in the direction of Jackie; she was bricklaying on the other side of the house with Shelley and Amber. He couldn't help wishing it was him that she was chattering away to. He had been surprised when she had assigned him something more challenging than picking up wood chips, but was disappointed by the extra distance she was putting between them since their meeting on the beach that morning. She had not poked him with any of her verbal jabs all day. He found himself missing them.

"Actually, you don't," George said, following Hyde's gaze. "Have time, that is. Has she told you that she'll be leaving for college in a month?"

Hyde froze for a moment but then resumed the back and forth motion with his sanding block. "I didn't know that."

"Does it make a difference?"

"Yes. No. I don't know. What do you care?"

George put a hand out to stop Hyde's sanding mid-swipe. "If it's about Jackie, it's a sure bet that I'll care."

"You seem to care a hell of a lot. Ten years silence and now suddenly you're the doting uncle? Where were you when her parents abandoned her? When they lost all their money? Funny, I don't remember you being there for Jackie. But if you want to know where Jackie was, she was with me."

"I know," George said simply. "Jackie told me the whole story. Who knows, maybe that's why I didn't kick your ass from here to Mexico when you showed up here. Because you were there for her when I couldn't be." George looked in the direction of Alex who was laughing it up with Rick and Jamie, drinking sodas on a break. "Then again, maybe there's another reason."

Hyde raised his eyebrows, following George's look. "What? You don't approve of Jackie's new fashion accessory?"

"I've got no good reason to disapprove. He could be the perfect guy for her, as far as I know. Or maybe he's just a stop-gap to help her get over someone else." George patted Hyde on the shoulder. "Time will tell."

A little competition can be a healthy thing, George reasoned. A man tends to show what he's made of when he's trying to give a woman a reason to be chosen. George's driving need before he left this world was to make sure Jackie was safe, that there would be someone to look out for her when he was gone. He did not know if it would be the mercurial Alex or the sombre stranger next to him, but he had a feeling that would become clear the more time this triangle of young people were forced to interact with each other.

"Again with the time. I'm running out of time, Jackie's only got a month here – tell me, how much time do you have, Mr Burkhart?" This stopped George in his tracks; his breathing stopped as Hyde held his eyes in a stare-down. "I know what kind of pills you're taking. I've been living with a registered nurse for the last 4 years who just loves to talk about her work, everything from draining a bowel resection to pain meds for cancer patients."

George let out a long breath. "I knew letting you stay would come back to bite me."

………………………………………

"What do you think they're talking about," Shelley asked Jackie as she slapped down more cement.

"Who?" Jackie asked, playing dumb.

"You're uncle and the sexy stranger, of course," Amber said.

"Probably just work stuff. Who cares? And you girls shouldn't be thinking Steven is sexy. I told you, he is a dangerous, bad man who needs to be punished!"

Shelley gave a little moan. "Damn, now you're just feeding my fantasies. Did I tell you about the one that involves him in handcuffs and me in a very tight prison guard uniform?"

"Shelley! Shame on you! What would Jamie say?"

"Oh, don't be so straight, Jackie. It's not like I'd ever do anything."

"I just don't think it's right to think about someone in that way when you have a boyfriend," Jackie said with a touch of self-righteousness. Amber laughed.

"Like you haven't thought about it? I can tell from the way you two bicker at each other that's not true," she retorted. "Sexual tension much? And you with a boyfriend."

"There is nothing between us," Jackie said irritably. "And I don't have a boyfriend. Alex and I are just good friends"

Shelley shot her a knowing look. "Good friends who shower together."

"I knew I shouldn't have told you about that," Jackie pouted. "You make being clean sound so dirty."

"Seriously, if Alex isn't your boyfriend, what is he?"

"We're just taking our time. I've just come out of a relationship, I'm not ready to dive back into another one."

"Bad break up, huh?" Amber asked sympathetically.

In a steely voice, Jackie replied "Believe me when I say uh huh!"

………………………………………

"So what do you think the girls are talking about?" Rick asked Alex as he drained another soda.

"Probably how hot us guys look without our shirts on," Alex said knowingly. "I just hope Jackie can keep it in her pants when she gets me alone tonight."

"Does that mean you two have finally 'cemented' your relationship?" Jamie asked.

"Just about." Alex looked at his two best friends with a triumphant smile. "I'm telling you, dudes, I really think Jackie is the one." His friends groaned in unison. "What?"

"The one?" Rick said. "You mean like Alison Richards was the one?"

"Or Gloria Johnson?" Jamie added.

"Or Patty Swanston? Or Felicity Myers? Or Shelley?"

"Let's not bring Shelley into this," Alex said hastily; Jamie always got a little moody when Alex's past history with his girlfriend was brought up. "And why do you always have to bring up my old girlfriends? You talk like I'm one of those brainless wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am players. You know I had real feelings for each one of those girls."

"Just like you have real feelings for Jackie."

"Exactly," Alex agreed with Rick.

"Then as soon as you get on campus next month you'll develop some real feelings for the first blonde co-ed to pass by in a mini skirt."

"No!" Alex held a finger up in denial. "Not this time! I mean it, Rick, this time it's the real thing. I love Jackie and we are going to be together forever."

"Of course, dude," Jamie said soothingly. In an aside to Rick, he said "I call three weeks in the pool."

"Put me down for two," Rick said, his eyes straying towards the new guy on the other side of the building site. "From the lingering glances Hyde throws at the fair Jackie, me thinks Alex has a contender for the maiden's hand."

"Huh?"

"New guy's hot for Alex's chick."

"Oh, right."

"What was that about the new guy?" Alex asked sharply.

"Nothing, dude. He's cool."

"No, he's not cool," Alex corrected. "He's a dick."

"Right. Sorry. Forgot."

"Look at him over there, cosying up to the boss," Alex mocked as they looked over to Hyde and George, engrossed in conversation. "Sucking up, saying all the right things to get into George's good books. Yes sir, No sir, whatever you want, sir."

………………………………………

"You are such a bastard," Hyde informed George.

"Interesting social skills you have there, Steven. Do you talk to all your employers that way?"

"I'm self-employed," Hyde said.

"Wise choice."

"You think I haven't seen how much you've come to mean to Jackie? She's got no idea, does she? One day soon you're just gonna fold up like a lawn chair, and she'll never see it coming. Just one more person she counts on leaving her, this time for good."

"It's not exactly by choice, Steven."

"So that's it? You're just going to lie to her?"

A shadow passed over George's gaunt face. "I'd lie to myself if I thought I'd believe it. Trust me, Jackie is better off not knowing."

Hyde shook his head. "You have to tell her, George."

"She's happy, Steven. She laughs, she works, she nags, she fights. I'm not cutting any of that short by so much as one minute before I absolutely have to." George stepped away from the work bench. "I gave you a chance, Steven. Now you owe me the same thing."

Hyde looked on in frustration as George walked away, then his eyes strayed back to its usual subject; like a compass pointing north, his eyes always came back to her. She was laughing in the midst of her five new friends, her face shining with life. How could he take the light out of her eyes by telling her about her uncle? He had already caused her enough pain.

With a sigh, Hyde realised the only thing he could do for Jackie was be there for her when she needed him. He could only hope that would not be too soon.

………………………………………

"So, ready for a beach break? That sun feels like a blowtorch on my back," Alex said.

"Sure," his friends agreed and Jackie nodded, taking his hand as they walked towards the cliff path. As they passed by Hyde, she could not help seeing the sadness in her former flame's eyes as they watched her. She did not at first understand the reason, until she heard Alex mutter "dick" under his breath as they passed. Having once been the unwanted outsider of a group of tight-knit friends, she felt a sudden empathy for the isolation he must be feeling.

Just as they reached the path, she broke away from Alex's hand and ran back a few paces towards Hyde, who straightened up as he saw her.

"We're just going for a swim," Jackie explained, a little breathless. A short pause, and then, "Do you want to come?"

Hyde was silent for so long Jackie was just about to turn back around, regretting her foolish impulse. Then he dropped his sanding block and walked towards her.

"Sure."


	14. Reconstruction

**A.N. OK, none of the reviews picked up on the Buffy quote, but thanks for playing Pylea. It was the "Bad break up / believe me when I say uh huh" line, from the season when Angel went all bad and bloodsucky. Kind of like how this story references the season where Hyde went all bad and just plain sucky. Anyhow, hope you like this chapter and I won't even ask for reviews because either you want to say something or you don't and I doubt that my getting down on bended knees is going to make a difference (but if it does, please, please review).**

Building a house is a slow process; it begins with a dream, then a plan, then the painstaking work which requires the shared vision of more than one person before it is realised.

Hyde was finding that building a friendship was no different.

He was careful not to push Jackie. He accepted that each time she spoke to him without animosity was a victory. As was each time she asked him to hold a board steady while she cut it. Or the fact that now when the young people headed down to the beach at the end of the working day to build a fire and crack open some beers, a furtive nod from her was all the invitation he needed to trail along behind them.

He was finding his work-mates to be less tool-like than originally judged, now that he had Jackie's tacit acceptance. Although Rick and Jamie being such easy-going guys, it was unlikely they could have kept up the cold front for much longer. Alex was still unequivocally opposed to the new guy, but this did not bother Hyde. If anything, it encouraged him that Alex sensed Hyde was a threat to his claim on Jackie. It gave him a reason to hope that one day, when the friendship had been rebuilt, he could draw up plans for a new type of relationship to be laid on its foundations.

Of course, there were still rocky times when a careless word spoken would trigger bad memories and Jackie's eyes would darken and her mood would cool. She would ignore him for the rest of the day and Hyde would curse his tongue and wonder if he was chasing a lost cause.

But then there were days like this, one of those summer mornings when little breezes would blow in off the ocean to soothe heated faces. When it was his turn to choose the radio station (they took hourly shifts with this sacred duty) and the DJ was finishing up with a Led Zeppelin triple play. When all the workers, young and old, were moving together in a house-building symbiosis, their separate tasks combining to one outcome. It was days like this that made him glad he had crossed those six state lines.

"My turn," Robin cried as Hyde's hour came to an end. She turned the dial on the radio to some easy-listening station.

"Aw, Mom," Ryan whined, pausing with paintbrush raised. "Not old people music."

"Hush up, you," Robin ordered. A soft song floated out of the radio, a song that brought a smile to George's face as he recognised The Flamingos rendition of "I only have eyes for you".

"It's been a while," he said, his eyes following his former wife as she swayed towards him, a far off look in her eyes.

"This was my very first slow dance," she said.

"Did you know him before you knew Dad?" Adam asked, looking curiously towards George.

"Since seventh grade."

"Tell him how you made me fall in love with you," George dared her.

Robin met the challenge. "I smiled at him," she said, and the soft radiance of the smile she shone on George made further explanation unnecessary.

"Watch out for the smile, boys."

Hyde grinned and met Jackie's eyes. Jackie would later blame the spell the two older lovers were casting over the small group, that or the romantically haunting music. She felt there must be some enchantment over her that she could not look away from Steven's blue eyes in that moment. That she could not hold back an answering smile, a smile that made his eyes widen slightly.

Jackie broke the trance first, turning her head to follow Robin waltzing with her seven year old son across the raw pine boards of the newly laid floor.

"That's all you get. I'm busy today," Adam told her, turning back to recover his paint brush. Robin looked around for her next partner. Her eyes stopped at George.

"Let's see if you've gotten any better."

"Oh, I'm worse," George assured her. "Much, much worse."

_You are here  
So am I  
Maybe millions of people go by,  
but they all disappear from view.  
And I only have eyes for you _

Hyde and Jackie's eyes followed the older couple as they circled the makeshift dance floor together, their faces mirroring the words of the song as they detached from space and time. In that moment they were not someone's mother or an ex-husband. They were just Robin and George. For a moment they remembered that they belonged together.

And then the music ended. Ryan grabbed his mother's hand and pulled her away from George, a suddenly suspicious light in his eyes. George blinked, coming back to the real world. And when Jackie met Hyde's eyes again, she was not surprised to see the same vague melancholy reflected back at her. She knew that he had seen it as well, two people who were supposed to have spent their lives together, rich in love, but had missed each other somewhere along the way.

That one moment of connection only underscored the waste of what could have been.

………………………………………

"Here," Hyde said, sitting down next to Jackie. "I brought you something."

Jackie looked away from the moonlit ocean to find her ex at her side. Her mind had been preoccupied ever since the impromptu waltz session this morning. She had excused herself from the campfire and her circle of friends to take a walk up to the rocks that bracketed this stretch of beach, where she sat and pondered as the moon left a silvery trail across the water. Now the very person who was at the edges of her vague feeling of loss was interrupting her quiet time.

"What?"

Hyde held out the guitar to Jackie. A few nights ago George had brought it down to the beach, as he sometimes did, visiting with the young people and playing them a few songs that were such classics they did not date to any era. After they had all shouted out one last chorus of John Denver's 'Rocky Mountain High', Alex had proposed that it was Jackie's turn to entertain the troops. Her reaction to the offered guitar then was the same as now; she flinched.

"What's wrong?" Hyde knew his instinct had been right. Just like that night, a flash of fear crossed her face.

"I can't," Jackie said, holding her hands protectively in front of her, as though the instrument was a weapon. _And the award for weird behaviour goes to…_

"Why not?"

"I – I'm not allowed."

Now he was close, although he was getting a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach as he sensed what was at the bottom of her irrational fear. "Who says you're not allowed to play, Jackie?" he asked her softly. She was silent but kept her eyes fixed on the guitar, as though it both repelled and enticed her. "Who, Jackie?"

"My father," Jackie whispered.

"Did he hurt you?" Hyde put his hand under her chin and raised her eyes to meet his own.

"It was only that one time," Jackie said, excusing her abuser. "I didn't know it would make him angry."

"What happened?" Without meaning to, the story spilled out of Jackie, as though it had been waiting ten years to escape her lips. Hyde's face grew whiter as she stumbled over the part where her father had wrapped his leather belt around his eight year old daughter's legs. It was lucky for Jack Burkhart he was on the other side of the country and behind solid prison walls, or he might have fallen victim to a violence with far more merit attached to it than his own.

"How could he do that to you?" Hyde asked in horrified wonder. "Just because you were playing a guitar? Hell, no-one plays bad enough to warrant that kind of punishment – not even Kelso."

Even now, Jackie's instinct was to protect her father from the judgment she saw in her ex's eyes. "It wasn't like that. My playing, it just made him so mad because I reminded him of… someone. Someone he hates."

"Who?" But Jackie shook her head, not ready to give up that secret and starting to regret revealing the other.

"It doesn't matter. It was a long time ago."

"If you're backing away from an old guitar like it was a rattlesnake, then it obviously does still matter to you." Hyde placed the guitar in Jackie's lap. Even though her first instinct was to throw it far away, she was not about to prove his point for him so she let it rest there, scowling at Hyde.

"Are you happy now? I told you, I'm fine. I just don't know how to play anymore. It's been 10 years."

"Yeah, you're right," Hyde readily agreed. "You never did have any talent when it came to picking music, stands to reason you wouldn't be any use at making it. I bet you probably couldn't remember a single chord by now."

Jackie narrowed her eyes; their widely differing musical tastes had always been a sore point between the couple. They had spent more time and passion arguing the merits of Neil Diamond verses ACDC than Kennedy and Khrushchev had given to disarmament talks. With defiant eyes, her left hand formed a V on the second fret of the guitar while her right hand swept down to evoke a perfect G chord. She raised her eyebrows haughtily as if to say _so there!_

"A fluke," Hyde decreed. "Everybody knows that one, anyway. Let's see you try for something that takes some skill."

And so it went, Hyde egging Jackie on as the chords unlocked themselves from her memory one by one. They lost track of time as Jackie rediscovered that old excitement of creating melodies from a hollow figure eight. When the moon withdrew it's shimmering light they used Hyde's lighter to illuminate the guitar strings. By the time the lighter fluid was getting close to empty, Jackie was shifting seamlessly between the chords, her fingers having remembered their old strumming rhythm.

"Jackie!"

Their easy moment was halted abruptly as a flashlight cut through the darkness. Her strumming ended on a discordant twang as Alex's face appeared, the handsome features strangely grisly when lit from below by his torch.

"What's going on here?" The words came out harshly as Alex's eyes flitted between the girl he proclaimed to adore and her untrustworthy ex-boyfriend.

"Just a little music lesson," Hyde said casually. "No reason for you to go clutching at your pearls, Alexandra."

"Funny," Alex said, looking at Jackie. "When I ask you to play something, you look at me like I'd asked you to dance topless at my grandparents' silver wedding anniversary. But when he asks you, suddenly you're Joni freaking Mitchell."

"I think there's a lesson to be learned there," Hyde snarked, but then backed off when Jackie frowned at him (her frown was downright scary when lit by a flashlight).

"I just didn't want to play in front of everybody because I was a little rusty," Jackie explained. "I only didn't mind playing in front of Hyde because his taste in music is so awful that no criticism he could make would have any effect on me." She stood up, handing the guitar back to Hyde.

"C'mon, you can't climb the cliff path in the dark, not unless you want to break your neck."

"You should test that theory out," Hyde muttered in Alex's direction, but quietened when Jackie squeezed his arm warningly. As she climbed down from the rock, her mouth passed by his ear and he caught the whisper of one word; _thanks._ It was another small stepping stone towards his redemption and he was grateful for it, but it did not make the sight of Jackie walking away with the tall Californian any easier to take.

As he stayed out on the rock, picking at the strings absently, he wondered who it was that Jackie had brought to the mind of her bastard of a father so disastrously when she played her guitar.

………………………………………

"So, you want to tell me why you're hanging out alone all night with your ex-boyfriend?" Alex said accusingly as they neared the garage. They were the first words he had spoken to her since they had left the beach, which was very much out of character for him. Jackie found she did not like his tone.

"What do you think I was doing?" she countered, crossing her arms and facing the boy.

"Honestly? I have no idea. I mean, from the outside it looks like you and Hyde were having a rare old time, laughing and talking away until one in the morning." This was a shock; Jackie had no idea it was so late. "A person could be forgiven for thinking you were a couple. But then when you factor in that this is the same guy you told me led you on for years only to dump you for a stripper, it's obvious that there's no way any girl with a speck of pride would ever take back a lowlife like that."

"There's no question of me taking Steven back," Jackie replied evenly. "So stop it, Alex."

"Stop what?"

"Manoeuvring me. I don't like the things I told you in confidence being used against me and I really don't like being called a doormat just so you can make me run your maze in a direction of your choosing."

Alex flushed slightly and had the grace to look a little shamed. "I never meant… I'm sorry, it's just… God, Jackie, I really care about you. You know that, right?"

Jackie read his face with thoughtful gaze and then nodded. "I know."

"Then can you blame me for going a little nuts when I find you acting all cosy with your ex-boyfriend?"

Jackie sighed, letting the tension leave her small frame. She was starting to feel the late hour and her hug was boneless as she stepped into Alex's arms. "It's not like you think," she muffled into his T-shirt. "The most I could ever by with Steven is friends. That's the best we could shoot for – too much has happened for us to ever go back to what we were." And she wanted to be friends, Jackie realised. If they were friends, maybe that dark and painful place in her heart would finally heal. Maybe she could remember Point Place as the place where she had experienced true love instead of the place where her heart was broken. For the first time, Jackie understood the real reason why George had told Hyde he could stay.

"No more than friends," Alex repeated for confirmation. "Can I quote you on that?"

Jackie brushed a kiss against his lips and smiled up at him. "Burkhart. The "h" is silent."

**A.N. By the way, I took that "clutching your pearls" line from Demian whose reviews of _Supernatural_ on TVWP crack me up every week. Seriously, they rival the show itself for entertainment value. **


End file.
